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In A Cabinet Of Natural History, We Become Sensible Of A Certain Occult Recognition And Sympathy In Regard To The Most Unwieldy And Eccentric Forms Of Beast, Fish, And Insect.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In A Cabinet Of

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In A Cabinet Of Natural History, We Become Sensible Of A Certain Occult Recognition And Sympathy In Regard To The Most Unwieldy And Eccentric Forms Of Beast, Fish, And Insect.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

There Is Properly No History, Only Biography.

The Invariable Mark Of Wisdom Is To See The Miraculous In The Common.

Remarkable Trait In The American Character Is The Union, Not Very Infrequent, Of Yankee Cleverness With Spiritualism.

Behold The Sea, The Opaline, The Plentiful And Strong, Yet Beautiful As Is The Rose In June, Fresh As The Trickling Rainbow Of July; Sea Full Of Food, The Nourisher Of Kinds, Purger Of Earth, And Medicine Of Men; Creating A Sweet Climate By My Breath, Washing Out Harms And Griefs From Memory, And, In My Mathematic Ebb And Flow, Giving A Hint Of That Which Changes Not.

The Soul Is Not Born; It Does Not Die; It Was Not Produced From Anyone Unborn, Eternal, It Is Not Slain, Though The Body Is Slain.

How Painful To Give A Gift To Any Person Of Sensibility, Or Of Equality! It Is Next Worst To Receiving One

Our Books Approach Very Slowly The Things We Most Wish To Know.

Almost Every Man We Meet Requires Some Civility; Requires To Be Humored; - He Has Some Fame, Some Talent, Some Whim Of Religion Or Philanthropy In His Head That Is Not To Be Questioned, And Which Spoils All Conversation With Him. But A Friend Is A Sane Man Who Exercises Not My Ingenuity, But Me.

Conservatism Makes No Poetry, Breathes No Prayer, Has No Invention; It Is All Memory. Reform Has No Gratitude, No Prudence, No Husbandry.

Echo Waits With Art And Care And Will The Faults Of Song Repair.

The Two Parties Which Divide The State, The Party Of Conservatism And That Of Innovation Are Very Old, And Have Disputed The Possession Of The World Ever Since It Was Made ... Now One, Now The Other Gets The Day, And Still The Fight Renews Itself As If For The First Time, Under New Names And Hot Personalities ... Innovation Is The Salient Energy; Conservatism The Pause On The Last Movement.

Is Not Prayer A Study Of Truth, A Sally Of The Soul Into The Unfound Infinite? No Man Ever Prayed Heartily Without Learning Something.

Always Scorn Appearances And You Always May.

Heaven Walks Among Us Ordinarily Muffled In Such Triple Or Tenfold Disguises That The Wisest Are Deceived And No One Suspects The Days To Be Gods.

The Way To Learn German, Is, To Read The Same Dozen Pages Over And Over A Hundred Times, Till You Know Every Word And Particle In Them, And Can Pronounce And Repeat Them By Heart.

I Read The Other Day Some Verses Written By An Eminent Painter Which Were Original And Not Conventional. The Soul Always Hears An Admonition In Such Lines, Let The Subject Be What It May. The Sentiment They Instil Is Of More Value Than Any Thought They May Contain. 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.

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

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.

Wit Makes Its Own Welcome, And Levels All Distinctions. No Dignity, No Learning, No Force Of Character, Can Make Any Stand Against Good Wit.

An Individual Is An Encloser. Time And Space, Liberty And Necessity, Truth And Thought, Are Left At Large No Longer.

To Eat Bread Is One Thing; To Love The Precepts Of Christ And Resolve To Obey Them Is Quite Another.

Sanity Consists In Not Being Subdued By Your Means. Fancy Prices Are Paid For Position, And For The Culture Of Talent, But To Thegrand Interests, Superficial Success Is Of No Account.

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

Virtue Alone Is Sweet Society, It Keeps The Key To All Heroic Hearts, And Opens You A Welcome In Them All.

Be Yourself; No Base Imitator Of Another, But Your Best Self. There Is Something Which You Can Do Better Than Another. Listen To The Inward Voice And Bravely Obey That. Do The Things At Which You Are Great, Not What You Were Never Made For.

All Forms Of Government Symbolize An Immortal Government, Common To All Dynasties And Independent Of Numbers, Perfect Where Two Men Exist, Perfect Where There Is Only One Man.

Life Is A Boundless Privilege, And When You Pay For Your Ticket, And Get Into The Car, You Have No Guess What Good Company You Shall Find There.

Courage Consists In Equality To The Problem Before Us.

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

All Violence, All That Is Dreary And Repels, Is Not Power, But The Absence Of Power.

I Pack My Trunk, Embrace My Friends, Embark On The Sea And At Last Wake Up In Naples, And There Beside Me Is The Stern Fact, The Sad Self, Unrelenting, Identical, That I Fled From.

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

By The Rude Bridge That Arched The Flood, Their Flag To April's Breeze Unfurled, Here Once The Embattled Farmers Stood, And Fired The Shot Heard Round The World.

I Find That The Americans Have No Passions, They Have Appetites.

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.

A Child Convinced Against His Will Is Of The Same Opinion Still. The Reward For A Thing Well Done, Is To Have Done It.

I Wish The Days To Be As Centuries, Loaded, Fragrant. Now We Reckon Them As Bank-days, By Some Debt Which Is To Be Paid Us, Or Which We Are To Pay, Or Some Pleasure We Are To Taste.

Moral Qualities Rule The World, But At Short Distances The Senses Are Despotic.

I Hate Quotations. Tell Me What You Know.

People Do Not Deserve To Have Good Writing, They Are So Pleased With Bad.

For All Men Live By Truth, And Stand In Need Of Expression. In Love, In Art, In Avarice, In Politics, In Labor, In Games, We Study To Utter Our Painful Secret. The Man Is Only Half Himself, The Other Half Is His Expression.

The Cannon Will Not Suffer Any Other Sound To Be Heard For Miles And For Years Around It.

It Is Very Hard To Be Simple Enough To Be Good.

The Revelation Of Thought Takes Men Out Of Servitude Into Freedom.

My Doom And My Strength Is To Be Solitary.

What If You Do Fail, And Get Fairly Rolled In The Dirt Once Or Twice. Up Again, You Shall Never Be So Afraid Of A Tumble.

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.

The Method Of Nature: Who Could Ever Analyze It?

Do Not You See That Every Misfortune Is Misconduct; That Every Honour Is Desert; That Every Effort Is An Insolence Of Your Own?...you Carry Your Fortune In Your Own Hand.

But A Compassion For That Which Is Not And Cannot Be Useful And Lovely, Is Degrading And Futile.

A Man's Power To Connect His Thought With Its Proper Symbol, And So To Utter It, Depends On The Simplicity Of His Character, That Is, Upon His Love Of Truth, And His Desire To Communicate It Without Loss.

Sincerity Is The Highest Complement You Can Pay

Money Often Costs Too Much.

Greatest Wealth

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.

Good Churches Are Not Built By Bad Men; At Least, There Must Be Probity And Enthusiasm Somewhere In The Society. These Minsters Were Neither Built Nor Filled By Atheists.

The Essence Of Greatness Is The Perception That Virtue Is Enough.

Nature Is No Sentimentalist, - Does Not Cosset Or Pamper Us. We Must See That The World Is Rough And Surly, And Will Not Mind Drowning A Man Or A Woman; But Swallows Your Ship Like A Grain Of Dust. The Cold, Inconsiderate Of Persons, Tingles Your Blood, Benumbs Your Feet, Freezes A Man Like An Apple. The Diseases, The Elements, Fortune, Gravity, Lightning, Respect No Persons.

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

Nature Does Not Cocker Us: We Are Children, Not Pets: She Is Not Fond: Everything Is Dealt To Us Without Fear Or Favor, After Severe Universal Laws.

A Great Teacher Makes Hard Things Easy.

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

We Say The Cows Laid Out Boston. Well, There Are Worse Surveyors.

There Is Hope In Extravagance, There Is None In Routine.

Fear Is Cruel And Mean.

In A Library We Are Surrounded By Many Hundreds Of Dear Friends, But They Are Imprisoned By An Enchanter In These Paper And Leathern Boxes.

Excellence Is The New Forever.

A Sublime Hope Cheers Ever The Faithful Heart, That Elsewhere, In Other Regions Of The Universal Powers, Souls Are Now Acting, Enduring And Daring, Which Can Love Us, And Which We Can Love.

Go Out Of The House To See The Moon, And't Is Mere Tinsel; It Will Not Please As When Its Light Shines Upon Your Necessary Journey.

There Is No Way To Success In Art But To Take Off Your Coat, Grind Paint, And Work Like A Digger On The Railroad, All Day And Every Day.

The World Is The Ring Of His Spells, And The Play Of His Miracles.

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

Society Is Frivolous, And Shreds Its Day Into Scraps, Its Conversation Into Ceremonies And Escapes.

We Judge Of Man's Wisdom By His Hope.

We Aim Above The Mark To Hit The Mark.

We Dare Not Trust Our Wit For Making Our House Pleasant To Our Friend, So We Buy Ice Cream.

Sanity Is Very Rare; Every Man Almost And Every Woman Has A Dash Of Madness.

All Life Is A Nap. The More Naps You Take The Better.

The Whole Course Of Things Goes To Teach Us Faith. We Need Only Obey. There Is Guidance For Each Of Us, And By Lowly Listening We Shall Hear The Right Word. . . . Place Yourself In The Middle Of The Stream Of Power And Wisdom Which Flows Into You As Life, Place Yourself In The Full Center Of That Flood, Then You Are Without Effort Impelled To Truth, To Right, And A Perfect Contentment.

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.

Sole And Self-commanded Works, Fears Not Undermining Days, Grows By Decays, And, By The Famous Might That Lurks In Reaction And Recoil, Makes Flames To Freeze, And Ice To Boil.

Men Love To Wonder, And That Is The Seed Of Science.

He Who Is In Love Is Wise And Is Becoming Wiser, Sees Newly Every Time He Looks At The Object Beloved, Drawing From It With His Eyes And His Mind Those Virtues Which It Possesses.

We Are Ashamed Of Our Thoughts And Often See Them Brought Forth By Others.

Something Is Wanting To Science Until It Has Been Humanised.

It In Every Fair Face, Every Fair Sky, Every Fair Flower.

Though We Travel The World Over To Find The Beautiful, We Must Carry It With Us, Or We Find It Not. The Best Of Beauty Is A Finer Charm Than Skill In Surfaces, In Outlines, Or Rules Of Art Can Ever Teach, Namely, A Radiation From The Work Of Art Of Human Character, — A Wonderful Expression Through Stone, Or Canvas, Or Musical Sound, Of The Deepest And Simplest Attributes Of Our Nature, And Therefore Most Intelligible At Last To Those Souls Which Have These Attributes.

Enthusiasm Is The Engine Of Success.

Congratulations

Pure By Impure Is Not Seen.

A Day For Toil, An Hour For Sport, But For A Friend Is Life Too Short.

Luck Is Just Another Word For Tenacity Of Purpose.

My Own Mind Is The Direct Revelation Which I Have From God And Far Least Liable To Mistake In Telling His Will Of Any Revelation.

There Comes A Period Of The Imagination To Each--a Later Youth--the Power Of Beauty, The Power Of Looks, Of Poetry.

What Is Originality? It Is Being One's Self, And Reporting Accurately What We See And Are.

Shakspeare Is The Only Biographer Of Shakspeare; And Even He Can Tell Nothing, Except To The Shakspeare In Us; That Is, To Our Most Apprehensive And Sympathetic Hour.

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

For He That Feeds Men Serveth Few; He Serves All Who Dares Be True.

The Field Cannot Be Seen From Within The Field.

The Key To Every Man Is His Thought. Sturdy And Defying Though He Look, He Has A Helm Which He Obeys, Which Is The Idea After Which All His Facts Are Classified. He Can Only Be Reformed By Showing Him A New Idea Which Commands His Own.

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.

Reality Is A Sliding Door.

The Private Life Of One Man Shall Be A More Illustrious Monarchy,--more Formidable To Its Enemy, More Sweet And Serene In Its Influence To Its Friend, Than Any Kingdom In History. For A Man, Rightly Viewed, Comprehendeth The Particular Natures Of All Men.

Our Impatience Of Miles, When We Are In A Hurry; But It Is Still Best That A Mile Should Have Seventeen Hundred And Sixty Yards.

We Do What We Must, And Call It By The Best Names.

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

To Finish The Moment, To Find The Journey's End In Every Step Of The Road, To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours, Is Wisdom. It Is Not The Part Of Men, But Of Fanatics, Or Of Mathematicians, If You Will, To Say, That, The Shortness Of Life Considered, It Is Not Worth Caring Whether For So Short A Duration We Were Sprawling In Want, Or Sitting High. Since Our Office Is With Moments, Let Us Husband Them.

Great Men, Great Nations, Have Not Been Boasters And Buffoons, But Perceivers Of The Terror Of Life, And Have Manned Themselves To Face It.

The Bitterest Tragic Element In Life To Be Derived From An Intellectual Source Is The Belief In A Brute Fate Or Destiny.

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.

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

People With Great Gifts Are Easy To Find, But Symmetrical And Balanced Ones Never.

Power Is In Nature The Essential Measure Of Right.

People Who Wash Much Have A High Mind About It, And Talk Down To Those Who Wash Little.

Nature Is Sanative, Refining, Elevating. How Cunningly She Hides Every Wrinkle Of Her Inconceivable Antiquity Under Roses, And Violets, And Morning Dew! Every Inch Of The Mountains Is Scarred By Unimaginable Convulsions, Yet The New Day Is Purple With The Bloom Of Youth And Love.

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.

Don't Be A Cynic, And Bewail And Bemoan. Omit The Negative Propositions. Don't Waste Yourself In Rejection, Nor Bark Against The Bad, But Chant The Beauty Of The Good. Set Down Nothing That Will Help Somebody.

We Cannot Forgive Another For Not Being Ourselves.

Pride Ruined The Angels.

Make Youself Necessary To Someone.

But When You Have Chosen Your Part, Abide By It, And Do Not Weakly Try To Reconcile Yourself With The World.

Common Sense Is As Rare As Genius.

If We Could Have Any Security Against Moods! If The Profoundest Prophet Could Be Holden To His Words, And The Hearer Who Is Readyto Sell All And Join The Crusade, Could Have Any Certificate That To-morrow His Prophet Shall Not Unsay His Testimony!

The Philosophy Of Waiting Is Sustained By All The Oracles Of The Universe.

Man Is Made Of The Same Atoms The World Is, He Shares The Same Impressions, Predispositions, And Destiny. When His Mind Is Illuminated, When His Heart Is Kind, He Throws Himself Joyfully Into The Sublime Order, And Does, With Knowledge, What The Stones Do By Structure.

Man Exists For His Own Sake And Not To Add A Laborer To The State.

But Your Isolation Must Not Be Mechanical, But Spiritual, That Is, Must Be Elevation.

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

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.

Let Us Even Bid Our Dearest Friends Farewell, And Defy Them, Saying, "who Are You? Unhand Me: I Will Be Dependent No More." Ah! Seest Thou Not, O Brother, That Thus We Part Only To Meet Again On A Higher Platform, And Only Be More Each Other's, Because We Are More Our Own?

A Man Becomes What He Thinks About Most Of The Time

We Live In A New And Exceptional Age. America Is Another Word For Opportunity. Our Whole History Appears Like A Last Effort Of The Divine Providence In Behalf Of The Human Race; And A Literal, Slavish Following Of Precedents, As By A Justice Of The Peace, Is Not For Those Who At This Hour Lead The American Civilization.

I Believe That Our Own Experience Instructs Us That The Secret Of Education Lies In Respecting The Pupil.

There Is A Certain Satisfaction In Coming Down To The Lowest Ground Of Politics, For We Get Rid Of Cant And Hypocrisy.

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

Words Are Also Actions, And Actions Are A Kind Of Words.

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.

History Is Full, Down To This Day, Of The Imbecility Of Kings And Governors. They Are A Class Of Persons Much To Be Pitied, For They Know Not What They Should Do.

Don't Choose The Better Person, Choose The Person Who Makes A Better You.

He That Writes To Himself Writes To An Eternal Public. That Statement Only Is Fit To Be Made Public, Which You Have Come At In Attempting To Satisfy Your Own Curiosity.

We Have A Great Deal More Kindness Than Is Ever Spoken.

We Stand Against Fate, As Children Stand Up Against The Wall In Their Father's House, And Notch Their Height From Year To Year. But When The Boy Grows To A Man, And Is Master Of The House, He Pulls Down That Wall And Builds It New And Bigger.

We Infer The Spirit Of The Nation In Great Measure From The Language, Which Is A Sort Of Monument, To Which Each Forcible Individual In A Course Of Many Hundred Years Has Contributed A Stone.

Eloquence Is The Power To Translate A Truth Into Language Perfectly Intelligible To The Person To Whom You Speak.

The Oversoul Is Before Time, And Time, Father Of All Else, Is One Of His Children.

The New Statement Will Comprise The Skepticisms, As Well As The Faiths Of Society, And Out Of Unbeliefs A Creed Shall Be Formed. For, Skepticisms Are Not Gratuitous Or Lawless, But Are Limitations Of The Affirmative Statement, And The New Philosophy Must Take Them In, And Make Affirmations Outside Of Them, Just As Much As Must Include The Oldest Beliefs.

As The Sandwich Islander Believes That The Strength And Valor Of The Enemy He Kills Passes Into Himself, So We Gain The Strength Of The Temptation We Resist.

A Man Is A God In Ruins.

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

Be An Opener Of Doors

It Is Frivolous To Fix Pedantically The Date Of Particular Inventions. They Have All Been Invented Over And Over Fifty Times. Man Is The Arch Machine, Of Which All These Shifts Drawn From Himself Are Toy Models. He Helps Himself On Each Emergency By Copying Or Duplicating His Own Structure, Just So Far As Then Need Is.

Don't Waste Yourself In Rejection, Nor Bark Against The Bad, But Chant The Beauty Of The Good.

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.

Do Not Spill Thy Soul In Running Hither And Yon, Grieving Over The Mistakes And The Vices Of Others. The One Person Whom It Is Most Necessary To Reform Is Yourself.

A Great Man Is Always Willing To Be Little.

If You Cannot Be Free Be As Free As You Can.

Wherever There Is Power There Is Age.

For A Great Nature, It Is A Happiness To Escape A Religious Training; Religion Of Character Is So Apt To Be Invaded.

No Great Man Ever Complains Of Want Of Opportunity.

If You Put A Chain Around The Neck Of A Slave, The Other End Fastens Itself Around Your Own.

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

What We Have Learned From Other Becomes Our Own Reflection.

O Friend, My Bosom Said, Through Thee Alone The Sky Is Arched. Through Thee The Rose Is Red; All Things Through Thee Take Nobler Form, And Look Beyond The Earth, The Mill-round Of Our Fate Appears A Sun-path In Thy Worth. Me Too Thy Nobleness Has Taught To Master My Despair; The Fountains Of My Hidden Life Are Through Thy Friendship Fair.

The Sentiment Of Virtue Is A Reverence And Delight In The Presence Of Certain Divine Laws. It Perceives That This Homely Game Of Life We Play, Covers, Under What Seem Foolish Details, Principles That Astonish.

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 Heroic Soul Does Not Sell Its Justice And Its Nobleness.

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

Nature Turns All Malfaisance To Good.

Eloquence Shows The Power And Possibility Of Man.

Whilst All The World Is In Pursuit Of Power, Culture Corrects The Theory Of Success.

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.

Show Me A Man Who Has Acted, And Who Has Not Been The Victim And Slave Of His Action. What They Have Done Commits And Enforces Them To Do The Same Again. The First Act, Which Was To Be An Experiment, Becomes A Sacrament.

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

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.

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.

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

Every Sunset Brings The Promise Of A New Dawn

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

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

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

And In Cases Where Profound Conviction Has Been Wrought, The Eloquent Man Is He Who Is No Beautiful Speaker, But Who Is Inwardly Drunk With A Certain Belief. It Agitates And Tears Him, And Perhaps Almost Bereaves Him Of The Power Of Articulation.

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.

All My Hurts My Garden Spade Can Heal.

It Is Only When Mind And Character Slumber That The Dress Can Be Seen. If The Intellect Were Always Awake, And Every Noble Sentiment, The Man Might Go In Huckaback Or Mats, And His Dress Would Be Admired And Imitated.

I Cannot Remember The Books I've Read Any More Than The Meals I Have Eaten; Even So, They Have Made Me.

Your Genuine Action Will Explain Itself, And Will Explain Your Other Genuine Actions. Your Conformity Explains Nothing.

No Man Thoroughly Understands A Truth Until He Has Contended Against It.

What Is Life But The Angle Of Vision? A Man Is Measured By The Angle At Which He Looks At Objects.

Nature Forever Puts A Premium On Reality. What Is Done For Effect Is Seen To Be Done For Effect; What Is Done For Love Is Felt To Be Done For Love. A Man Inspires Affection And Honor Because He Was Not Lying In Wait For These.

The Best Picture Makes Us Say, I Am A Painter Also.

Every Young Man Is Prone To Be Misled By The Suggestions Of His Own Ill-founded Ambition Which He Mistakes For The Promptings Of Asecret Genius, And Thence Dreams Of Unrivaled Greatness.

Love Is Like A Hunter, Who Cares Not For The Game When Once Caught, Which He May Have Pursued With The Most Intense And Breathless Eagerness. Love Is Strongest In Pursuit; Friendship In Possession.

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

God Screens Us Evermore From Premature Ideas.

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

Criticism Should Not Be Querulous And Wasting, All Knife And Root-puller, But Guiding, Instructive, Inspiring, A South Wind, Not An East Wind.

Without Ambition One Starts Nothing. Without Work One Finishes Nothing. The Prize Will Not Be Sent To You. You Have To Win It. The Man Who Knows How Will Always Have A Job. The Man Who Also Knows Why Will Always Be His Boss. As To Methods There May Be A Million And Then Some, But Principles Are Few. The Man Who Grasps Principles Can Successfully Select His Own Methods. The Man Who Tries Methods, Ignoring Principles, Is Sure To Have Trouble.

The Secret Of Culture Is To Learn, That A Few Great Points Steadily Reappear, Alike In The Poverty Of The Obscurest Farm, And In The Miscellany Of Metropolitan Life, And That These Few Are Alone To Be Regarded,--the Escape From All False Ties; Courage To Be What We Are; And Love What Is Simple And Beautiful; Independence And Cheerful Relation, These Are The Essentials,--these, And The Wish To Serve,--to Add Somewhat To The Well-being Of Men.

Men Lose Their Tempers In Defending Their Taste.

We Wake From One Dream Into Another Dream.

Invention Breeds Invention. No Sooner Is The Electric Telegraph Devised Than Gutta-percha, The Very Material It Requires, Is Found. The Aeronaut Is Provided With Gun-cotton, The Very Fuel He Wants For His Balloon.

The Highest Revelation Is That God Is In Every Man.

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