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In My Utter Impotence To Test The Authenticity Of The Report Of My Senses, To Know Whether The Impressions They Make On Me Correspond With Outlying Objects, What Difference Does It Make, Whether Orion Is Up There In Heaven, Or Some God Paints The Image In The Firmament Of The Soul?

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In My Utter Impotence

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In My Utter Impotence To Test The Authenticity Of The Report Of My Senses, To Know Whether The Impressions They Make On Me Correspond With Outlying Objects, What Difference Does It Make, Whether Orion Is Up There In Heaven, Or Some God Paints The Image In The Firmament Of The Soul?

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Every Man Is An Infinitely Repelling Orb, And Holds His Individual Being On That Condition.

The Law Of Nature Is Alternation For Evermore. Each Electrical State Superinduces The Opposite. The Soul Environs Itself With Friends, That It May Enter Into A Grander Self-acquaintance Or Solitude; And It Goes Alone For A Season, That It May Exalt Its Conversation Or Society.

Government Has Come To Be A Trade, And Is Managed Solely On Commercial Principles. A Man Plunges Into Politics To Make His Fortune, And Only Cares That The World Shall Last His Days.

A Good Intention But Fixed And Resolute - Bent On High And Holy Ends, We Shall Find Means To Them On Every Side And At Every Moment; And Even Obstacles And Opposition Will But Make Us "like The Fabled Specter-ships," Which Sail The Fastest In The Very Teeth Of The Wind.

Fear Is A Great Instructor.

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?

Perhaps It Is The Lowest Of The Qualities Of An Orator, But It Is, On So Many Occasions, Of Chief Importance,--a Certain Robust And Radiant Physical Health; Or--shall I Say?--great Volumes Of Animal Heat.

Solitude, The Safeguard Of Mediocrity, Is To Genius, The Stern Friend, The Cold, Obscure Shelter Where Moult The Wings Which Will Bear It Farther Than Suns And Stars.

Talent Finds Its Models, Methods, And Ends In Society, Exists For Exhibition, And Goes To The Soul Only For Power To Work. Genius Is Its Own End, And Draws Its Means And The Style Of Its Architecture From Within.

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 Man Becomes What He Thinks About Most Of The Time

Nature, Through All Her Kingdoms, Insures Herself.

Four Snakes Gliding Up And Down A Hollow For No Purpose That I Could See - Not To Eat, Not For Love, But Only Gliding.

Let Us Be Poised, And Wise, And Our Own, Today. Let Us Treat Men And Women Well; Treat Them As If They Were Real; Perhaps They Are.

It Is The Duty Of Men To Judge Men Only By Their Actions. Our Faculties Furnish Us With No Means Of Arriving At The Motive, The Character, The Secret Self. We Call The Tree Good From Its Fruits, And The Man, From His Works.

Man Was Born To Be Rich, Or Grow Rich By Use Of His Faculties, By The Union Of Thought With Nature. Property Is An Intellectual Production. The Game Requires Coolness, Right Reasoning, Promptness, And Patience In The Players.

Many Of The Historical Proverbs Have A Doubtful Paternity.

What We Seek We Shall Find; What We Flee From Flees From Us.

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

Nations Have Lost Their Old Omnipotence; The Patriotic Tiedoes Not Hold. Nations Are Getting Obsolete, We Go And Live Where We Will.

We Must Have Kings, We Must Have Nobles; Nature Is Always Providing Such In Every Society; Only Let Us Have The Real Instead Of The Titular. In Every Society Some Are Born To Rule, And Some To Advise. The Chief Is The Chief All The World Over, Only Not His Cap And Plume. It Is Only This Dislike Of The Pretender Which Makes Men Sometimes Unjust To The True And Finished Man.

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.

Be Yourself; No Base Imitator Of Another, But Your Best Self.

Society Has No Bribe For Me.

The Solar System Has No Anxiety About Its Reputation, And The Credit Of Truth And Honesty Is As Safe; Nor Have I Any Fear That A Skeptical Bias Can Be Given By Leaning Hard On The Sides Of Fate, Of Practical Power, Or Of Trade, Which The Doctrine Of Faith Cannot Down-weigh.

No Man Acquires Property Without Acquiring With It A Little Arithmetic Also.

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

Life Has A Way Of Demanding That You Live It.

Politics Is A Deleterious Profession, Like Some Poisonous Handicrafts.

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

The Lover Of Nature Is He Whose Inward And Outward Senses Are Still Truly Adjusted To Each Other.

The Youth, Intoxicated With His Admiration Of A Hero, Fails To See, That It Is Only A Projection Of His Own Soul, Which He Admires.

Out Of Love And Hatred, Out Of Earnings And Borrowings And Leadings And Losses; Out Of Sickness And Pain; Out Of Wooing And Worshipping; Out Of Traveling And Voting And Watching And Caring; Out Of Disgrace And Contempt, Comes Our Tuition In The Serene And Beautiful Laws.

There Is A Power In Love To Divine Another's Destiny Better Than That Other Can, And By Heroic Encouragements, Hold Him To His Task. What Has Friendship So Signal As Its Sublime Attraction To Whatever Virtue Is In Us?

In Analysing History Do Not Be Too Profound, For Often The Causes Are Quite Superficial.

All The Great Speakers Were Bad Speakers At First.

What We Have Learned From Other Becomes Our Own Reflection.

To Laugh Often And Much ... This Is To Have Succeeded. Probably Not From Emerson: Here's The Full Quotation And The Story.

The History Of Reform Is Always Identical; It Is The Comparison Of The Idea With The Fact. Our Modes Of Living Are Not Agreeable To Our Imagination. We Suspect They Are Unworthy. We Arraign Our Daily Employments.

Divine Persons Are Character Born, Or, To Borrow A Phrase From Napoleon, They Are Victory Organized.

Self Reliance, The Height And Perfection Of Man, Is Reliance On God.

A Strenuous Soul Hates Cheap Success. It Is The Ardor Of The Assailant That Makes The Vigor Of The Defendant.

Let The Realist Not Mind Appearances. Let Him Delegate To Others The Costly Courtesies And Decorations Of Social Life. The Virtuesare Economists, But Some Of The Vices Are Also. Thus, Next To Humility, I Have Noticed That Pride Is A Pretty Good Husband. A Good Pride Is, As I Reckon It, Worth From Five Hundred To Fifteen Hundred A Year.

But I Go With My Friend To The Shore Of Our Little River, And With One Stroke Of The Paddle, I Leave The Village Politics And Personalities, Yes, And The World Of Villages And Personalities Behind, And Pass Into A Delicate Realm Of Sunset And Moonlight, Too Bright Almost For Spotted Man To Enter Without Novitiate And Probation.

Great Men Exist That There Might Be Greater Men.

The Idiot, The Indian, The Child And Unschooled Farmer's Boy Stand Nearer To The Light By Which Nature Is To Be Read, Than The Dissector Or The Antiquary.

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.

Heaven Always Bears Some Proportion To Earth. The God Of The Cannibal Will Be A Cannibal, Of The Crusades A Crusader, And Of The Merchants A Merchant.

A Weed Is A Plant We've Found No Use For Yet.

Men Have Sometimes Exchanged Names With Their Friends, As If They Would Signify That In Their Friend Each Loved His Own Soul.

Freedom Has Nothing To Do With Having The Right To Vote For Your Oppressor; Freedom Is Not Having Any Form Of Oppression.

Some Will Always Be Above Others.

Many A Reformer Perishes In His Removal Of Rubbish,--and That Makes The Offensiveness Of The Class. They Are Partial; They Are Notequal To The Work They Pretend. They Lose Their Way; In The Assault On The Kingdom Of Darkness, They Expend All Their Energy On Some Accidental Evil, And Lose Their Sanity And Power Of Benefit.

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

People Seem Sheathed In Their Tough Organization.

Don't Hang A Dismal Picture On The Wall, And Do Not Daub With Sables And Glooms In Your Conversation. Don't Be A Cynic And Disconsolate Preacher. Don't Bewail And Bemoan. Omit The Negative Propositions. Nerve Us With Incessant Affirmatives. Don't Waste Yourself In Rejection, Nor Bark Against The Bad, But Chant The Beauty Of The Good. When That Is Spoken Which Has A Right To Be Spoken, The Chatter And The Criticism Will Stop. Set Down Nothing That Will Not Help Somebody.

The One Thing In The World, Of Value, Is The Active Soul

There Are Only Ten Minutes In The Life Of A Pear When It Is Perfect To Eat.

The Religion That Is Afraid Of Science Dishonors God And Commits Suicide.

All My Best Thoughts Were Stolen By The Ancients.

Eloquence Must Be Grounded On The Plainest Narrative.

We Begin With Friendships, And All Our Youth Is A Reconnoitering And Recruiting Of The Holy Fraternity They Shall Combine For Thesalvation Of Men. But So The Remoter Stars Seem A Nebula Of United Light, Yet There Is No Group Which A Telescope Will Not Resolve; And The Dearest Friends Are Separated By Impassable Gulfs.

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

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

The World Belongs To The Energetic.

All The Devils Respect Virtue.

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

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

I Have Sometimes Thought That, In Order To Be A Good Minister, It Was Necessary To Leave The Ministry. The Profession Is Antiquated. In An Altered Age, We Worship In The Dead Forms Of Our Forefathers.

The Power Which Resides In Him Is New In Nature, And None But He Knows What That Is Which He Can Do, Nor Does He Know Until He Has Tried.

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

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.

Welcome Evermore To Gods And Men Is The Self-helping Man.

These Are The Voices Which We Hear In Solitude, But They Grow Faint And Inaudible As We Enter Into The World.

Only Be Admonished By What You Already See, Not To Strike Leagues Of Friendship With Cheap Persons, Where No Friendship Can Be. Our Impatience Betrays Us Into Rash And Foolish Alliances Which No God Attends.

He Who Would Be A Great Soul In The Future, Must Be A Great Soul Now.

A Scholar Is A Man With His Inconvenience, That, When You Ask Him His Opinion Of Any Matter, He Must Go Home And Look Up His Manuscripts To Know.

The Sum Of Wisdom Is That Time Is Never Lost That Is Devoted To Work.

You Shall Have Joy, Or You Shall Have Power, Said God; You Shall Not Have Both.

Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things; Each Once A Stroke Of Genius Or Of Love, Now Repeated And Hardened Into Usage.

The Intellect,-that Is Miraculous! Who Has It, Has The Talisman: His Skin And Bones, Though They Were Of The Color Of Night, Are Transparent, And The Everlasting Stars Shine Through, With Attractive Beams.

I Thought As I Rode In The Cold Pleasant Light Of Sunday Morning How Silent & Passive Nature Offers, Every Morn, Her Wealth To Man; She Is Immensely Rich, He Is Welcome To Her Entire Goods, Which He Speaks No Word, Only Leaves Over Doors Ajar, Hall, Store Room, & Cellar. He May Do As He Will: If He Takes Her Hint & Uses Her Goods, She Speaks No Word; If He Blunders & Starves, She Says Nothing.

Be Not The Slave Of Your Own Past.

When The Spirit Is Not Master Of The World, Then It Is Its Dupe.

Why Should We Not Have A First-hand And Immediate Experience Of God?

Gross And Obscure Natures, However Decorated, Seem Impure Shambles; But Character Gives Splendor To Youth, And Awe To Wrinkled Skin And Gray Hairs.

People Destined To Meet Will Do So, Apparently By Chance, At Precisely The Right Moment.

The Worst Of Charity Is That The Lives You Are Asked To Preserve Are Not Worth Preserving.

If You Know You Are Right, Stay The Course Even Though The Whole World Seems To Be Against You And Everyone You Know Questions Your Judgment. When You Prevail--and You Eventually Will If You Stick To The Job--they Will All Tell You That They Knew All Along You Could Do It.

Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit. To A Man Laboring Under Calamity, The Heat Of His Own Fire Hath Sadness In It.

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.

Every Man I Meet Is In Some Way My Superior...

Give Me Health And A Day, And I Will Make The Pomp Of Emperors Ridiculous.

For All Symbols Are Fluxional; All Language Is Vehicular And Transitive, And Is Good, As Ferries And Horses Are, For Conveyance, Not As Farms And Houses Are, For Homestead.

Life Is A Festival Only To The Wise.

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

A Mind Does Not Receive Truth As A Chest Receives Jewels That Are Put Into It, But As The Stomach Takes Up Food Into The System. It Is No Longer Food, But Flesh, And Is Assimilated. The Appetite And The Power Of Digestion Measure Our Right To Knowledge. He Has It Who Can Use It. As Soon As Our Accumulation Overruns Our Invention Or Power To Use, The Evils Of Intellectual Gluttony Begin,— Congestion Of The Brain, Apoplexy And Strangulation.

To Have Played And Laughed With Enthusiasm, And Sung With Exultation - This To To Have Succeeded.

The Effects Of Opposition Are Wonderful. There Are Men Who Rise Refreshed On Hearing Of A Threat, Men To Whom A Crisis, Which Intimidates And Paralyzes The Majority, Comes As Graceful And Beloved As A Bride!

Every Thing Admonishes Us How Needlessly Long Life Is.

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.

That Man Is Idle Who Can Do Something Better.

Do You See That Kitten Chasing So Prettily Her Own Tail? If You Could Look With Her Eyes, You Might See Her Surrounded With Hundreds Of Figures Performing Complex Dramas, With Tragic And Comic Issues, Long Conversations, Many Characters, Many Ups And Downs Of Fate.

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

A Beautiful Woman Is A Practical Poet.

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

I Learn Immediately From Any Speaker How Much He Has Already Lived, Through The Poverty Or The Splendor Of His Speech. Life Lies Behind Us As The Quarry From Whence We Get Tiles And Copestones For The Masonry Of Today. This Is The Way To Learn Grammar. Colleges And Books Only Copy The Language Which The Field And The Work-yard Made.

Wise Men Are Not Wise At All Times.

In Politics And In Trade, Bruisers And Pirates Are Of Better Promise Than Talkers And Clerks.

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.

Nature Never Hurries: Atom By Atom, Little By Little, She Achieves Her Work. The Lesson One Learns From Yachting Or Planting Is The Manners Of Nature; Patience With The Delays Of Wind And Sun, Delays Of The Seasons, Bad Weather, Excess Or Lack Of Water.

Necessity Does Everything Well. In Our Condition Of Universal Dependence, It Seems Heroic To Let The Petitioner Be The Judge Of His Necessity, And To Give All That Is Asked, Though At Great Inconvenience.

A Moment Is A Concentrated Eternity.

Nothing Will Supply The Want Of Sunshine To Peaches, And, To Make Knowledge Valuable, You Must Have The Cheerfulness Of Wisdom. Whenever You Are Sincerely Pleased You Are Nourished. The Joy Of The Spirit Indicates Its Strength. All Healthy, Things Are Sweet-tempered. Genius Works In Sport, And Goodness Smiles To The Last.

There Is No Thought In Any Mind, But It Quickly Tends To Convert Itself Into Power.

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.

They Have Seen But Half The Universe Who Never Have Been Shown The House Of Pain.

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

We Are The Prisoners Of Ideas. They Catch Us Up For Moments Into Their Heaven, And So Fully Engage Us, That We Take No Thought Forthe Morrow, Gaze Like Children, Without An Effort To Make Them Our Own.

We Are Sure That, Though We Know Not How, Necessity Does Comport With Liberty, The Individual With The World, My Polarity With Thespirit Of The Times. The Riddle Of The Age Has For Each A Private Solution.

War Disorganizes, But It Is To Reorganize.

On Bravely Through The Sunshine And The Showers! Time Hath His Work To Do, And We Have Ours.

Thus Is Man Made Equal To Every Event. He Can Face Danger For The Right. A Poor, Tender, Painful Body, He Can Run Into Flame Or Bullets Or Pestilence, With Duty For His Guide.

For What Are They All In Their High Conceit, When Man In The Bush With God May Meet?

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.

A Beautiful Person Among The Greeks, Was Thought To Betray By This Sign Some Secret Favor Of The Immortal Gods; And We Can Pardonpride, When A Woman Possesses Such A Figure That Wherever She Stands, Or Moves, Or Leaves A Shadow On The Wall, Or Sits For A Portrait To The Artist, She Confers A Favor On The World.

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

Popularity Is For Dolls.

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

Science Does Not Know Its Debt To Imagination.

The Soul Rules Over Matter. Matter May Pass Away Like A Mote In The Sunbeam, May Be Absorbed Into The Immensity Of God, As A Mistis Absorbed Into The Heat Of The Sun--but The Soul Is The Kingdom Of God, The Abode Of Love, Of Truth, Of Virtue.

Heat Of The Sun

We Owe To Man Higher Succors Than Food And Fire. We Owe To Man, Man.

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.

The World Looks Like A Multiplication-table, Or A Mathematical Equation, Which, Turn It How You Will, Balances Itself.

Mathematical Equations

Wisdom Will Never Let Us Stand With Any Man On An Unfriendly Footing. We Refuse Sympathy And Intimacy With People, As If We Waited For Some Better Sympathy Or Intimacy To Come. But Whence And When: Tomorrow Will Be Like Today. Life Wastes Itself While We Are Preparing To Live.

The Primary Wisdom Is Intuition. In That Deep Force, The Last Fact Behind Which Analysis Cannot Go, All Things Find Their Origin.

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

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.

America Means Opportunity, Freedom, Power.

All Men, In The Abstract, Are Just And Good; What Hinders Them, In The Particular, Is, The Momentary Predominance Of The Finite And Individual Over The General Truth. The Condition Of Our Incarnation In A Private Self, Seems To Be, A Perpetual Tendency To Prefer The Private Law, To Obey The Private Impulse, To The Exclusion Of The Law Of The Universal Being.

The Eye Is The First Circle; The Horizon Which It Forms Is The Second; And Throughout Nature This Primary Figure Is Repeated Without End.

Walking Has The Best Value As Gymnastics Of The Mind.

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

To Be Rich Is To Have A Ticket Of Admission To The Masterworks And Chief Men Of Each Race. It Is To Have The Sea, By Voyaging; To Visit The Mountains, Niagara, The Nile, The Desert, Rome, Paris, Constantinople: To See Galleries, Libraries, Arsenals, Manufactories.

Music And Wine Are One.

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

The Wings Of Time Are Black And White, Pied With Morning And With Night.

Black And White

Wherever Work Is Done, Victory Is Attained.

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

A Friend Is A Person With Whom I May Be Sincere. Before Him I May Think Aloud. I Am Arrived At Last In The Presence Of A Man So Real And Equal, That I May Drop Even Those Undermost Garments Of Dissimulation, Courtesy, And Second Thought, Which Men Never Put Off, And May Deal With Him With The Simplicity And Wholeness With Which One Chemical Atom Meets Another.

There Is Health In Table Talk And Nursery Play. We Must Wear Old Shoes And Have Aunts And Cousins.

Beauty Without Expression Is Boring.

It Is Handsomer To Remain In The Establishment Better Than The Establishment, And Conduct That In The Best Manner, Than To Make Asally Against Evil By Some Single Improvement, Without Supporting It By A Total Regeneration.

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.

Lose Yourself In Nature And Find Peace

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

Insist On Yourself. Never Imitate.

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.

He Who Has Acquired The Ability, May Wait Securely The Occasion Of Making It Felt And Appreciated, And Know That It Will Not Loiter.

You Think Me The Child Of Circumstance; I Make My Circumstance.

Well, The World Has A Million Writers. One Would Think, Then, That Good Thought Would Be As Familiar As Air And Water, And The Gifts Of Each New Hour Would Exclude The Last. Yet We Can Count All Our Good Books; Nay, I Remember Any Beautiful Verse For Twenty Years.

Plato Is Philosophy, And Philosophy, Plato,--at Once The Glory And The Shame Of Mankind, Since Neither Saxon Nor Roman Have Availed To Add Any Idea To His Categories.

A Beautiful Woman Is A Practical Poet, Taming Her Savage Mate, Planting Tenderness, Hope And Eloquence In All Whom She Approaches.

A Healthy Soul Stands United With The Just And The True, As The Magnet Arranges Itself With The Pole, So That He Stands To All Beholders Like A Transparent Object Betwixt Them And The Sun, And Whoso Journeys Towards The Sun, Journeys Towards That Person. He Is Thus The Medium Of The Highest Influence To All Who Are Not On The Same Level.

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

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.

When It's Dark Enough Men See Stars.

Nothing In Nature Is Exhausted In Its First Use...in God, Every End Is Converted Into A New Means.

I Would Study, I Would Know, I Would Admire Forever.

Numbers Serve To Discipline Rhetoric. Without Them It Is Too Easy To Follow Flights Of Fancy, To Ignore The World As It Is And To Remold It Nearer The Heart's Desire.

Goodness That Preaches Undoes Itself.

Nor Sequent Centuries Could Hit Orbit And Sum Of Shakspeare's Wit. The Men Who Lived With Him Became Poets, For The Air Was Fame.

It Is Plain That There Is No Separate Essence Called Courage, No Cup Or Cell In The Brain, No Vessel In The Heart Containing Drops Or Atoms That Make Or Give This Virtue; But It Is The Right Or Healthy State Of Every Man, When He Is Free To Do That Which Is Constitutional To Him To Do.

The Sky Is The Ultimate Art Gallery Just Above Us.

Fear Always Springs From Ignorance.

If I Have Renounced The Search Of Truth, If I Have Come Into The Port Of Some Pretending Dogmatism, Some New Church, Some Schelling Or Cousin, I Have Died To All Use Of These New Events That Are Born Out Of Prolific Time Into Multitude Of Life Every Hour. I Am As Bankrupt To Whom Brilliant Opportunities Offer In Vain. He Has Just Foreclosed His Freedom, Tied His Hands, Locked Himself Up And Given The Key To Another To Keep.

Where The Heart Is, There The Muses, There The Gods Sojourn, And Not In Any Geography Of Fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, And Boston Bay, You Think Paltry Places, And The Ear Loves Names Of Foreign And Classic Topography. But Here We Are; And, If We Tarry A Little, We May Come To Learn That Here Is Best. See To It, Only, That Thyself Is Here;--and Art And Nature, Hope And Fate, Friends, Angels, And The Supreme Being, Shall Not Absent From The Chamber Where Thou Sittest.

Treat Your Friend As A Spectacle.

The Louder He Talked Of His Honor, The Faster We Counted Our Spoons.

Everything In Nature Contains All The Powers Of Nature. Everything Is Made Of One Hidden Stuff.

Wit Makes Its Own Welcome, And Levels All Distinctions.

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

Children And Savages Use Only Nouns Or Names Of Things, Which They Convert Into Verbs, And Apply To Analogous Mental Acts.

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

A Little Fact Is Worth A Whole Limbo Of Dreams.

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.

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.

Religionists Are Clinging To Little, Positive, Verbal, Formal Versions Of The Moral Law... While The Laws Of The Law, The Great Circling Truths Whose Only Adequate Symbol Is The Material Laws, The Astronomy Etc. Are All Unobserved, And Sneered At When Spoken Of.

Genius Is Its Own End.

The Soul Answers Never By Words, But By The Thing Itself That Is Inquired After.

Nature And Books Belong To The Eyes That See Them. It Depends On The Mood Of The Man, Whether He Shall See The Sunset Or The Fine Poem. There Are Always Sunsets, And There Is Always Genius; But Only A Few Hours So Serene That We Can Relish Nature Or Criticism. The More Or Less Depends On Structure Or Temperament. Temperament Is The Iron Wire On Which The Beads Are Strung. Of What Use Is Fortune Or Talent To A Cold And Defective Store?

The Life Of Man Is A Self-evolving Circle.

Men Are Respectable Only As They Respect.

The First Farmer Was The First Man, And All Historic Nobility Rests On Possession And Use Of Land.

No Facts Are To Me Sacred; None Are Profane; I Simply Experiment, An Endless Seeker, With No Past At My Back.

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.

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

The Hero Is He Who Is Immovably Centered.

Painting Was Called Silent Poetry And Poetry Speaking Painting.

The Maker Of A Sentence Launches Out Into The Infinite.

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Clifford D. Simak

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