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Is Not Cant The Materia Prima Of The Devil, From Which All Falsehoods, Imbecilities, Abominations, Body Themselves, From Which No True Thing Can Come? For Cant Is Itself The Properly A Double-distilled Lie, The Second Power Of A Lie.

-Thomas Carlyle

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Is Not Cant The

Thomas Carlyle

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Is Not Cant The Materia Prima Of The Devil, From Which All Falsehoods, Imbecilities, Abominations, Body Themselves, From Which No True Thing Can Come? For Cant Is Itself The Properly A Double-distilled Lie, The Second Power Of A Lie.

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The First Duty Of Man Is To Conquer Fear; He Must Get Rid Of It, He Cannot Act Till Then.

I Do Not Believe In The Collective Wisdom Of Individual Ignorance.

The Suffering Man Ought Really To Consume His Own Smoke; There Is No Good In Emitting Smoke Till You Have Made It Into Fire.

Not Our Logical, Mensurative Faculty, But Our Imaginative One Is King Over Us; I Might Say, Priest And Prophet To Lead Us Heavenward; Or Magician And Wizard To Lead Us Hellward.

For The Superior Morality, Of Which We Hear So Much, We Too Would Desire To Be Thankful: At The Same Time, It Were But Blindness To Deny That This Superior Morality Is Properly Rather An Inferior Criminality, Produced Not By Greater Love Of Virtue, But By Greater Perfection Of Police; And Of That Far Subtler And Stronger Police, Called Public Opinion.

It Is A Vain Hope To Make People Happy By Politics.

Every Day That Is Born Into The World Comes Like A Burst Of Music And Rings The Whole Day Through, And You Make Of It A Dance, A Dirge, Or A Life March, As You Will.

No Conquest Can Ever Become Permanent Which Does Not Show Itself Beneficial To The Conquered As Well As To The Conquerors.

Let A Man Try Faithfully, Manfully To Be Right; He Will Grow Daily More And More Right. It Is At Bottom The Condition On Which All Men Have To Cultivate Themselves.

Cash-payment Is Not The Sole Nexus Of Man With Man.

He Who Cannot Withal Keep His Mind To Himself Cannot Practice Any Considerable Thing Whatsoever.

Speech Is Silver, Silence Is Golden.

This World, After All Our Science And Sciences, Is Still A Miracle; Wonderful, Inscrutable, Magical And More, To Whosoever Will Think Of It.

Magic In The World

There Is Often More Spiritual Force In A Proverb Than In Whole Philosophical Systems.

History Is A Great Dust Heap.

Let One Who Wants To Move And Convince Others, First Be Convinced And Moved Themselves. If A Person Speaks With Genuine Earnestness The Thoughts, The Emotion And The Actual Condition Of Their Own Heart, Others Will Listen Because We All Are Knit Together By The Tie Of Sympathy.

Nothing Is More Terrible Than Activity Without Insight.

There Are Remedies For All Things But Death.

The Christian Must Be Consumed By The Conviction Of The Infinite Beauty Of Holiness And The Infinite Damnability Of Sin.

Infinite Beauty

Music... A Kind Of Inarticulate, Unfathomable Speech, Which Leads To The Edge Of The Infinite.

Poetry Is The Attempt Which Man Makes To Render His Existence Harmonious.

Love Is The Only Game That Is Not Called On Account Of Darkness.

Men's Hearts Ought Not To Be Set Against One Another, But Set With One Another And All Against Evil Only.

Nay, In Every Epoch Of The World, The Great Event, Parent Of All Others, Is It Not The Arrival Of A Thinker In The World?

Affectation Is The Product Of Falsehood.

They Have Their Belief, These Poor Tibet People, That Providence Sends Down Always An Incarnation Of Himself Into Every Generation. At Bottom Some Belief In A Kind Of Pope! At Bottom Still Better, A Belief That There Is A Greatest Man; That He Is Discoverable; That, Once Discovered, We Ought To Treat Him With An Obedience Which Knows No Bounds. This Is The Truth Of Grand Lamaism; The "discoverability" Is The Only Error Here.

Hardened Round Us, Encasing Wholly Every Notion We Form Is A Wrapping Of Traditions, Hearsay's, And Mere Words.

Work Earnestly At Anything, You Will By Degrees Learn To Work At All Things.

The Authentic Insight And Experience Of Any Human Soul, Were It But Insight And Experience In Hewing Of Wood And Drawing Of Water, Is Real Knowledge, A Real Possession And Acquirement.

A Strong Mind Always Hopes, And Has Always Cause To Hope.

The Grand Result Of Schooling Is A Mind With Just Vision To Discern, With Free Force To Do: The Grand Schoolmaster Is Practice.

Great Men Are The Commissioned Guides Of Mankind, Who Rule Their Fellows Because They Are Wiser.

The End Of Man Is An Action, And Not A Thought, Though It Were The Noblest?

One Seems To Believe Almost All That They Believe; And When They Stop Short And Call It A Religion, And You Pass On, And Call It Only A Reminiscence Of One, Should You Not Part With The Kiss Of Peace?

A Judicious Man Looks At Statistics, Not To "get Knowledge, But To Save Himself From Having Ignorance Foisted 'on Him".

Man Is A Tool-using Animal.

Superstition! That Horrid Incubus Which Dwelt In Darkness, Shunning The Light, With All Its Racks, And Poison Chalices, And Foul Sleeping Draughts, Is Passing Away Without Return. Religion Cannot Pass Away. The Burning Of A Little Straw May Hide The Stars Of The Sky; But The Stars Are There And Will Reappear.

Close Thy Byron ; Open Thy Goethe .

One Monster There Is In The World, The Idle Man.

What I Loved In The Man Was His Health, His Unity With Himself; All People And All Things Seemed To Find Their Quite Peaceable Adjustment With Him, Not A Proud Domineering One, As After Doubtful Contest, But A Spontaneous-looking Peaceable, Even Humble One.

The Modern Majesty Consists In Work. What A Man Can Do Is His Greatest Ornament, And He Always Consults His Dignity By Doing It.

If An Eloquent Speaker Speak Not The Truth, Is There A More Horrid Kind Of Object In Creation?

Everywhere In Life, The True Question Is Not What We Gain, But What We Do.

The Coldest Word Was Once A Glowing New Metaphor.

There Is Precious Instruction To Be Got By Finding We Were Wrong.

Whatsoever Thy Hand Findeth To Do, Do That With All Thy Might And Leave The Issues Calmly To God.

The Wise Man Is But A Clever Infant, Spelling Letters From A Hieroglyphical Prophetic Book, The Lexicon Of Which Lies In Eternity.

Thou Fool! Nature Alone Is Antique, And The Oldest Art A Mushroom; That Idle Crag Thou Sittest On Is Six Thousand Years Of Age.

Is Man’s Civilization Only A Wrappage, Through Which The Savage Nature Of Him Can Still Burst, Infernal As Ever?

If A Man Was Great While Living, He Becomes Tenfold Greater When Dead.

O Poor Mortals, How Ye Make This Earth Bitter For Each Other.

Speech That Leads Not To Action, Still More That Hinders It, Is A Nuisance On The Earth.

That There Should One Man Die Ignorant Who Had Capacity For Knowledge, This I Call A Tragedy.

A Man's Religion Consists, Not Of The Many Things He Is In Doubt Of And Tries To Believe, But Of The Few He Is Assured Of And Has No Need Of Effort For Believing.

He That Will Not Work According To His Faculty, Let Him Perish According To His Necessity: There Is No Law Juster Than That.

He That Has Done Nothing Has Known Nothing.

And Yet Without Labour There Were No Ease, No Rest, So Much As Conceivable.

Considering The Multitude Of Mortals That Handle The Pen In These Days, And Can Mostly Spell, And Write Without Glaring Violations Of Grammar, The Question Naturally Arises: How Is It, Then, That No Work Proceeds From Them, Bearing Any Stamp Of Authenticity And Permanence; Of Worth For More Than One Day?

Whose School-hours Are All The Days And Nights Of Our Existence.

The Eye Of The Intellect "sees In All Objects What It Brought With It The Means Of Seeing."

For Suffering And Enduring There Is No Remedy, But Striving And Doing.

Pain And Suffering

The World Is A Thing That A Man Must Learn To Despise, And Even To Neglect, Before He Can Learn To Reverence It, And Work In It And For It.

Rest Is For The Dead.

Philosophy Dwells Aloft In The Temple Of Science, The Divinity Of Its Inmost Shrine; Her Dictates Descend Among Men, But She Herself Descends Not : Whoso Would Behold Her Must Climb With Long And Laborious Effort, Nay, Still Linger In The Forecourt, Till Manifold Trial Have Proved Him Worthy Of Admission Into The Interior Solemnities.

The Crash Of The Whole Solar And Stellar Systems Could Only Kill You Once.

Out Of The Lowest Depths There Is A Path To The Loftiest Heights.

In The Long-run Every Government Is The Exact Symbol Of Its People, With Their Wisdom And Unwisdom; We Have To Say, Like People Like Government.

Wondrous Is The Strength Of Cheerfulness, Altogether Past Calculation Its Powers Of Endurance.

Nakedness, Hunger, Distress Of All Kinds, Death Itself Have Been Cheerfully Suffered, When The Heart Was Right. It Is The Feeling Of Injustice That Is Insupportable To All Men.

A Stammering Man Is Never A Worthless One. Physiology Can Tell You Why. It Is An Excess Of Sensibility To The Presence Of His Fellow Creature, That Makes Him Stammer.

Weak Eyes Are Fondest Of Glittering Objects.

Blessed Be The God's Voice; For It Is True, And Falsehoods Have To Cease Before It!

No Good Book Or Good Thing Of Any Kind Shows It Best Face At First. No The Most Common Quality Of In A True Work Of Art That Has Excellence And Depth, Is That At First Sight It Produces A Certain Disappointment.

Men Do Less Than They Ought, Unless They Do All They Can.

O Thou Who Art Able To Write A Book, Which Once In The Two Centuries Or Oftener There Is A Man Gifted To Do, Envy Not Him Whom They Name City-builder, And Inexpressibly Pity Him Whom They Name Conqueror Or City-burner! Thou Too Art A Conqueror And Victor; But Of The True Sort, Namely Over The Devil: Thou Too Hast Built What Will Outlast All Marble And Metal, And Be A Wonder-bringing City Of The Mind, A Temple And Seminary And Prophetic Mount, Whereto All Kindreds Of The Earth Will Pilgrim.

All Greatness Is Unconscious, Or It Is Little And Naught.

The Condition Of The Most Passionate Enthusiast Is To Be Preferred Over The Individual Who, Because Of The Fear Of Making A Mistake, Won't In The End Affirm Or Deny Anything

Persons, With Big Wigs Many Of Them And Austere Aspect, Whom I Take To Be Professors Of The Dismal Science… Coining “dismal Science” As A Nickname For Political Economy

The Block Of Granite Which Was An Obstacle In The Pathway Of The Weak, Became A Stepping-stone In The Pathway Of The Strong.

Music Is Well Said To Be The Speech Of Angels; In Fact, Nothing Among The Utterances Allowed To Man Is Felt To Be So Divine. It Brings Us Near To The Infinite.

When Pococke Inquired Of Grotius, Where The Proof Was Of That Story Of The Pigeon, Trained To Pick Peas From Mahomet's (muhammad's) Ear, And Pass For An Angel Dictating To Him? Grotius Answered That There Was No Proof!

Well Might The Ancients Make Silence A God; For It Is The Element Of All Godhood, Infinitude, Or Transcendental Greatness,--at Once The Source And The Ocean Wherein All Such Begins And Ends.

Why Multiply Instances? It Is Written, The Heavens And The Earth Shall Fade Away Like A Vesture; Which Indeed They Are: The Time-vesture Of The Eternal. Whatsoever Sensibly Exists, Whatsoever Represents Spirit To Spirit, Is Properly A Clothing, A Suit Of Raiment, Put On For A Season, And To Be Laid Off. Thus In This One Pregnant Subject Of Clothes, Rightly Understood, Is Included All That Men Have Thought, Dreamed, Done, And Been: The Whole External Universe And What It Holds Is But Clothing; And The Essence Of All Science Lies In The Philosophy Of Clothes.

One Is Weary Of Hearing About The Omnipotence Of Money. I Will Say Rather That, For A Genuine Man, It Is Not Evil To Be Poor.

No Sooner Does A Great Man Depart, And Leave His Character As Public Property, Than A Crowd Of Little Men Rushes Towards It. There They Are Gathered Together, Blinking Up To It With Such Vision As They Have, Scanning It From Afar, Hovering Round It This Way And That, Each Cunningly Endeavoring, By All Arts, To Catch Some Reflex Of It In The Little Mirror Of Himself.

The Insignificant, The Empty, Is Usually The Loud; And After The Manner Of A Drum, Is Louder Even Because Of Its Emptiness.

Laws Themselves, Political Constitutions, Are Not Our Life; But Only The House Wherein Our Life Is Led.

The Great Law Of Culture Is, Let Each Become All That He Was Created Capable Of Being; Expand, If Possible, To His Full Growth; Resisting All Impediments, Casting Off All Foreign, Especially All Noxious Adhesions, And Show Himself At Length In His Own Shape And Stature Be These What They May.

If You Will Believe Me, You Who Are Young, Yours Is The Golden Season Of Life. As You Have Heard It Called, So It Verily Is, The Seed-time Of Life; In Which, If You Do Not Sow, Or If You Sow Tares Instead Of Wheat, You Cannot Expect To Reap Well Afterwards, And You Will Arrive At Little. And In The Course Of Years When You Come To Look Back, If You Have Not Done What You Have Heard From Your Advisers,-and Among Many Counsellors There Is Wisdom,-you Will Bitterly Repent When It Is Too Late.

All True Work Is Sacred.

Heroes, It Would Seem, Exist Always And A Certain Worship Of Them.

The Merit Of Originality Is Not Novelty; It Is Sincerity.

Hero-worship Exists, Has Existed, And Will Forever Exist, Universally, Among Mankind.

The Press Is The Fourth Estate Of The Realm.

A Battle Is A Terrible Conjugation Of The Verb To Kill: I Kill, Thou Killest, He Kills, We Kill, They Kill, All Kill.

What Is Nature? Art Thou Not The Living Government Of God? O Heaven, Is It In Very Deed He Then That Ever Speaks Through Thee, That Lives And Loves In Thee, That Lives And Loves In Me?

Debt Is A Bottomless Sea.

Who Is There That, In Logical Words, Can Express The Effect Music Has On Us?

Thirty Millions, Mostly Fools.

All True Work Is Sacred. In All True Work, Were It But True Hand Work, There Is Something Of Divineness. Labor, Wide As The Earth, Has Its Summit In Heaven.

The True Sovereign Of The World, Who Moulds The World Like Soft Wax, According To His Pleasure, Is He Who Lovingly Sees Into The World.

We Are To Take No Counsel With Flesh And Blood; Give Ear To No Vain Cavils, Vain Sorrows And Wishes; To Know That We Know Nothing, That The Worst And Cruelest To Our Eyes Is Not What It Seems, That We Have To Receive Whatsoever Befalls Us As Sent From God Above, And Say, "it Is Good And Wise,--god Is Great! Though He Slay Me, Yet I Trust In Him." Islam Means, In Its Way, Denial Of Self. This Is Yet The Highest Wisdom That Heaven Has Revealed To Our Earth.

In A Certain Sense All Men Are Historians.

The Past Is Always Attractive Because It Is Drained Of Fear.

Experience Takes Dreadfully High School-wages, But He Teaches Like No Other.

The Ideal Is In Thyself, The Impediments Too Is In Thyself.

It Is A Strange Trade That Of Advocacy. Your Intellect, Your Highest Heavenly Gift Is Hung Up In The Shop Window Like A Loaded Pistol For Sale.

There Is But One Temple In This Universe: The Body. We Speak To God Whenever We Lay Our Hands Upon It.

Variety Is The Condition Of Harmony.

Lies Exist Only To Be Extinguished.

And There Are Ben [jonson] And William Shakespeare In Wit-combat, Sure Enough; Ben Bearing Down Like A Mighty Spanish War-ship, Fraught With All Learning And Artillery; Shakespeare Whisking Away From Him - Whisking Right Through Him, Athwart The Big Bulk And Timbers Of Him; Like A Miraculous Celestial Light-ship, Woven All Of Sheet-lightning And Sunbeams!

Not On Morality, But On Cookery, Let Us Build Our Stronghold: There Brandishing Our Frying-pan, As Censer, Let Us Offer Sweet Incense To The Devil, And Live At Ease On The Fat Things He Has Provided For His Elect!

A Man Protesting Against Error Is On The Way Towards Uniting Himself With All Men That Believe In Truth.

Nothing That Was Worthy In The Past Departs; No Truth Or Goodness Realized By Man Ever Dies, Or Can Die.

Every Noble Work Is At First Impossible.

Inspirational Life

Are Not Our Greatest Men As Good As Lost? The Men That Walk Daily Among Us, Warming Us, Feeding Us, Walk Shrouded In Darkness, Mere Mythic Men.

We Are To Remember What An Umpire Nature Is; What A Greatness, Composure Of Depth And Tolerance There Is In Her. You Take Wheat To Cast Into The Earth's Bosom; Your Wheat May Be Mixed With Chaff, Chopped Straw, Barn-sweepings, Dust And All Imaginable Rubbish; No Matter: You Cast It Into The Kind Just Earth; She Grows The Wheat, - The Whole Rubbish She Silently Absorbs, Shrouds It In, Says Nothing Of The Rubbish.

All Great Peoples Are Conservative.

A Person Who Is Gifted Sees The Essential Point And Leaves The Rest As Surplus.

Focus And Concentration

I Too Acknowledge The All-out Omnipotence Of Early Culture And Nature; Hereby We Have Either A Doddered Dwarf-bush, Or A High-towering, Wide-shadowing Tree! Either A Sick Yellow Cabbage, Or An Edible Luxuriant Green One. Of A Truth, It Is The Duty Of All Men, Especially Of All Philosophers, To Note Down With Accuracy The Characteristic Circumstances Of Their Education,--what Furthered, What Hindered, What In Any Way Modified It.

We Call That Fire Of The Black Thunder-cloud "electricity," And Lecture Learnedly About It, And Grind The Like Of It Out Of Glass And Silk: But What Is It? What Made It? Whence Comes It? Whither Goes It?

Acorns Are Planted Silently By Some Unnoticed Breeze.

The Beginning Of All Wisdom Is To Look Fixedly On Clothes, Or Even With Armed Eyesight, Till They Become Transparent.

The Universe Is But One Vast Symbol Of God.

Poverty, We May Say, Surrounds A Man With Ready-made Barriers, Which If They Do Mournfully Gall And Hamper, Do At Least Prescribe For Him, And Force On Him, A Sort Of Course And Goal; A Safe And Beaten, Though A Circuitous, Course. A Great Part Of His Guidance Is Secure Against Fatal Error, Is Withdrawn From His Control. The Rich, Again, Has His Whole Life To Guide, Without Goal Or Barrier, Save Of His Own Choosing, And, Tempted, Is Too Likely To Guide It Ill.

To Be True Is Manly, Chivalrous, Christian; To Be False Is Mean, Cowardly, Devilish.

Parties On The Back Of Parties, At War With The World And With Each Other.

He That Has A Secret Should Not Only Hide It, But Hide That He Has It To Hide.

Caution Is The Lower Story Of Prudence.

A Man Without A Goal Is Like A Ship Without A Rudder.

Popular Opinion Is The Greatest Lie In The World.

Let Him Who Would Move And Convince Others, Be First Moved And Convinced Himself.

What Are Your Historical Facts Still More Your Biographical Wilt Thou Know A Man By Stringing-together Beadrolls Of What Thou Namest Facts

It Is Well Said, In Every Sense, That A Man's Religion Is The Chief Fact With Regard To Him.

This Is The Eternal Law Of Nature For A Man, My Beneficent Exeter-hall Friends; This, That He Shall Be Permitted, Encouraged, And If Need Be, Compelled To Do What Work The Maker Of Him Has Intended By The Making Of Him For This World! Not That He Should Eat Pumpkin With Never Such Felicity In The West India Islands Is, Or Can Be, The Blessedness Of Our Black Friend; But That He Should Do Useful Work There, According As The Gifts Have Been Bestowed On Him For That.

It Were A Real Increase Of Human Happiness, Could All Young Men From The Age Of Nineteen Be Covered Under Barrels, Or Rendered Otherwise Invisible; And There Left To Follow Their Lawful Studies And Callings, Till They Emerged, Sadder And Wiser, At The Age Of Twenty-five.

With Union Grounded On Falsehood And Ordering Us To Speak And Act Lies, We Will Not Have Anything To Do. Peace? A Brutal Lethargy Is Peaceable; The Noisome Is Peaceable. We Hope For A Living Peace, Not A Dead One!

Our Very Walking Is An Incessant Falling; A Falling And A Catching Of Ourselves Before We Come Actually To The Pavement. It Is Emblematic Of All Things A Man Does.

A Witty Statesman Said, You Might Prove Anything By Figures.

The Lies (western Slander) Which Well-meaning Zeal Has Heaped Round This Man (muhammad) Are Disgraceful To Ourselves Only.

We Were Wise Indeed, Could We Discern Truly The Signs Of Our Own Time; And By Knowledge Of Its Wants And Advantages, Wisely Adjust Our Own Position In It. Let Us, Instead Of Gazing Idly Into The Obscure Distance, Look Calmly Around Us, For A Little, On The Perplexed Scene Where We Stand. Perhaps, On A More Serious Inspection, Something Of Its Perplexity Will Disappear, Some Of Its Distinctive Characters And Deeper Tendencies More Clearly Reveal Themselves; Whereby Our Own Relations To It, Our Own True Aims And Endeavors In It, May Also Become Clearer.

Speech Is Of Time, Silence Is Of Eternity.

The Three Great Elements Of Modern Civilization, Gun Powder, Printing, And The Protestant Religion.

A True Delineation Of The Smallest Man Is Capable Of Interesting The Greatest Man.

Work Is The Grand Cure Of All The Maladies And Miseries That Ever Beset Mankind.

Fancy That Thou Deservest To Be Hangedthou Wilt Feel It Happiness To Be Only Shot: Fancy That Thou Deservest To Be Hanged Ina Hair Halter, It Will Be A Luxury To Die In Hemp.

A Man Cannot Make A Pair Of Shoes Rightly Unless He Do It In A Devout Manner.

Force, Force, Everywhere Force; We Ourselves A Mysterious Force In The Centre Of That. "there Is Not A Leaf Rotting On The Highway But Has Force In It: How Else Could It Rot?" [as Used In His Time, By The Word Force, Carlyle Means Energy.]

Of All Your Troubles, Great And Small, The Greatest Are The Ones That Don't Happen At All.

In Every Man's Writings, The Character Of The Writer Must Lie Recorded.

The Past Is All Holy To Us; The Dead Are All Holy; Even They That Were Wicked When Alive.

War Is A Quarrel Between Two Thieves Too Cowardly To Fight Their Own Battle; Therefore They Take Boys From One Village And Another Village, Stick Them Into Uniforms, Equip Them With Guns, And Let Them Loose Like Wild Beasts Against One Other.

May Blessings Be Upon The Head Of Cadmus, The Phoenicians, Or Whoever It Was That Invented Books.

We Have Not The Love Of Greatness, But The Love Of The Love Of Greatness.

The Great Soul Of This World Is Just.

He Is Wise Who Can Instruct Us And Assist Us In The Business Of Virtuous Living.

Have A Purpose In Life, And Having It, Throw Into Your Work Such Strength Of Mind And Muscle As God Has Given You.

Just In The Ratio Knowledge Increases, Faith Decreases.

Wondrous Is The Strength Of Cheerfulness, And Its Power Of Endurance - The Cheerful Man Will Do More In The Same Time, Will Do It; Better, Will Preserve It Longer, Than The Sad Or Sullen.

There Is Something In Man Which Your Science Cannot Satisfy.

Nature Alone Is Antique, And The Oldest Art A Mushroom.

The Mystical Bond Of Brotherhood Makes All Men Brothers.

The Times Are Very Bad. Very Well, You Are There To Make Them Better.

Old Age Is Not A Matter For Sorrow. It Is Matter For Thanks If We Have Left Our Work Done Behind Us.

Contented Saturnine Human Figures, A Dozen Or So Of Them, Sitting Around A Large Long Table...perfect Equality Is To Be The Rule; No Rising Or Notice Taken When Anybody Enters Or Leaves. Let The Entering Man Take His Place And Pipe, Without Obligatory Remarks; If He Cannot Smoke...let Him At Least Affect To Do So, And Not Ruffle The Established Stream Of Things.

The Tragedy Of Life Is Not So Much What Men Suffer, But Rather What They Miss.

For Man Is Not The Creature And Product Of Mechanism; But, In A Far Truer Sense, Its Creator And Producer.

A Man Willing To Work, And Unable To Find Work, Is Perhaps The Saddest Sight That Fortune's Inequality Exhibits Under This Sun.

To The Wisest Man, Wide As Is His Vision. Nature Remains Of Quite Infinite Depth, Of Quite Infinite Expansion And All Experience Thereof Limits Itself To Some Few Computed Centuries And Measured Square Miles.

Earnestness Alone Makes Life Eternity.

No Violent Extreme Endures.

A Man With A Half Volition Goes Backwards And Forwards, And Makes No Way On The Smoothest Road; A Man With A Whole Volition Advances On The Roughest, And Will Reach His Purpose, If There Be Even A Little Worthiness In It. The Man Without A Purpose Is Like A Ship Without A Rudder - A Waif, A Nothing, A No Man. Have A Purpose In Life And Having It, Throw Such Strength Of Mind And Muscle Into Your Work As God Has Given You.

The King Is The Man Who Can.

But The Whim We Have Of Happiness Is Somewhat Thus. By Certain Valuations, And Averages, Of Our Own Striking, We Come Upon Some Sort Of Average Terrestrial Lot; This We Fancy Belongs To Us By Nature, And Of Indefeasible Rights. It Is Simple Payment Of Our Wages, Of Our Deserts; Requires Neither Thanks Nor Complaint. Foolish Soul! What Act Of Legislature Was There That Thou Shouldst Be Happy? A Little While Ago Thou Hadst No Right To Be At All.

The Best Effect Of Any Book Is That It Excites The Reader To Self Activity.

Insurrection, Never So Necessary, Is A Most Sad Necessity; And Governors Who Wait For That To Instruct Them Are Surely Getting Into The Fatalest Course.

With Stupidity And Sound Digestion, Man May Front Much.

War Is A Quarrel Between Two Thieves Too Cowardly To Fight Their Own Battle.

If You Do Not Wish A Man To Do A Thing, You Had Better Get Him To Talk About It; For The More Men Talk, The More Likely They Are To Do Nothing Else.

Laughter Is The Cipher Key Wherewith We Decipher The Whole Man

Silence Is As Deep As Eternity, Speech A Shallow As Time.

How Were Friendship Possible? In Mutual Devotedness To The Good And True; Otherwise Impossible, Except As Armed Neutrality Or Hollow Commercial League. A Man, Be The Heavens Ever Praised, Is Sufficient For Himself; Yet Were Ten Men, United In Love, Capable Of Being And Of Doing What Ten Thousand Singly Would Fail In. Infinite Is The Help Man Can Yield To Man.

Trust Not The Heart Of That Man For Whom Old Clothes Are Not Venerable.

Thought, True Labor Of Any Kind, Highest Virtue Itself, Is It Not The Daughter Of Pain?

To Us Also, Through Every Star, Through Every Blade Of Grass, Is Not God Made Visible If We Will Open Our Minds And Our Eyes.

Cease To Brag To Me Of America, And Its Model Institutions And Constitutions. America, Too, Will Have To Strain Its Energies, Crack Its Sinews, And All But Break Its Heart, As The Rest Of Us Have Had To Do, In Thousand-fold Wrestle With The Pythons, And Mud-demons, Before It Can Become A Babitation For The Gods.

The True Church Of England, At This Moment, Lies In The Editors Of The Newspapers.

I Should Say Sincerity, A Deep, Great, Genuine Sincerity, Is The First Characteristic Of All Men In Any Way Heroic.

O Time! Time! How It Brings Forth And Devours! And The Roaring Flood Of Existence Rushes On Forever Similar, Forever Changing!

We Are Not Altogether Here To Tolerate. We Are Here To Resist, To Control And Vanquish Withal.

At The Bottom There Is No Perfect History; There Is None Such Conceivable. All Past Centuries Have Rotted Down, And Gone Confusedly Dumb And Quiet.

A Man's Felicity Consists Not In The Outward And Visible Blessing Of Fortune, But In The Inward And Unseen Perfections And Riches Of The Mind.

It Is The Feeling Of Injustice That Is Insupportable To All Men.

A Vein Of Poetry Exists In The Hearts Of All Men.

Teach A Parrot The Terms 'supply And Demand' And You've Got An Economist.

When We Can Drain The Ocean Into Mill-ponds, And Bottle Up The Force Of Gravity, To Be Sold By Retail, In Gas Jars; Then May We Hope To Comprehend The Infinitudes Of Man's Soul Under Formulas Of Profit And Loss; And Rule Over This Too, As Over A Patent Engine, By Checks, And Valves, And Balances.

A Dandy Is A Clothes-wearing Man--a Man Whose Trade, Office, And Existence Consist In The Wearing Of Clothes. Every Faculty Of His Soul, Spirit, Person And Purse Is Heroically Consecrated To This One Object--the Wearing Of Clothes, Wisely And Well; So That, As Others Dress To Live, He Lives To Dress.

Dinners Are Defined As 'the Ultimate Act Of Communion;' Men That Can Have Communion In Nothing Else, Can Sympathetically Eat Together, Can Still Rise Into Some Glow Of Brotherhood Over Food And Wine.

Teaching School Is But Another Word For Sure And Not Very Slow Destruction.

No Man Lives Without Jostling And Being Jostled; In All Ways He Has To Elbow Himself Through The World, Giving And Receiving Offence.

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