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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It Is Frivolous To

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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The Arts And Inventions Of Each Period Are Only Its Costume, And Do Not Invigorate Men.

We Must Be Our Own Before We Can Be Another's.

Nature Avenges Herself Speedily On The Hard Pedantry That Would Chain Her Waves. She Is No Literalist. Every Thing Must Be Taken Genially, And We Must Be At The Top Of Our Condition, To Understand Any Thing Rightly.

The Poor Are Only They Who Feel Poor.

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.

Venus, When Her Son Was Lost, Cried Him Up And Down The Coast, In Hamlets, Palaces, And Parks, And Told The Truant By His Marks,- Golden Curls, And Quiver, And Bow.

O Friend, Never Strike Sail To A Fear! Come Into Port Greatly, Or Sail With God The Seas.

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.

I Do Not Speak With Any Fondness But The Language Of Coolest History, When I Say That Boston Commands Attention As The Town Whichwas Appointed In The Destiny Of Nations To Lead The Civilization Of North America.

Ennui Shortens Life, And Bereaves The Day Of Its Light.

Fear Is Cruel And Mean.

A Weed Is A Plant Whose Virtue Is Not Yet Known.

America Is Another Name For Opportunity.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage. Whatever Course You Decide Upon, There Is Always Someone To Tell You That You Are Wrong.

I Have No Expectation That Any Man Will Read History Aright Who Thinks That What Was Done In A Remote Age, By Men Whose Names Have Resounded Far, Has Any Deeper Sense Than What He Is Doing Today.

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

Proverbs Are The Literature Of Reason, Or The Statements Of Absolute Truth, Without Qualification. Like The Sacred Books Of Each Nation, They Are The Sanctuary Of Its Intuitions.

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

Why Has My Motley Diary No Jokes? Because It Is A Soliloquy And Every Man Is Grave Alone.

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

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

And What Fastens Attention, In The Intercourse Of Life, Like Any Passage Betraying Affection Between Two Parties? Perhaps We Never Saw Them Before, And Never Shall Meet Them Again. But We See Them Exchange A Glance, Or Betray A Deep Emotion, And We Are No Longer Strangers. We Understand Them, And Take The Warmest Interest In The Development Of The Romance. All Mankind Love A Lover.

Line In Nature Is Not Found; Unit And Universe Are Round.

Consider What You Have In The Smallest Well-chosen Library-a Company Of The Wisest And Wittiest Men Which Can Be Plucked Out Of All Civilized Countries In A Thousand Years. The Men Themselves Were Then Hidden And Inaccessible. They Were Solitary, Impatient Of Interruption, And Fenced By Etiquette. But Now They Are Immortal, And The Thought They Did Not Reveal, Even To Their Bosom Friends, Is Here Written Out In Transparent Words Of Light To Us, Who Are Strangers Of Another Age.

A Cultivated Man, Wise To Know And Bold To Perform, Is The End To Which Nature Works.

Many Might Go To Heaven With Half The Labor They Go To Hell.

A Man Complained That On His Way Home To Dinner He Had Every Day To Pass Through That Long Field Of His Neighbor's. I Advised Him To Buy It, And It Would Never Seem Long Again.

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

When Nature Has Work To Be Done, She Creates A Genius To Do It.

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

I Believe That Our Own Experience Instructs Us That The Secret Of Education Lies In Respecting The Pupil. It Is Not For You To Choose What He Shall Know, What He Shall Do. It Is Chosen And Foreordained, And He Only Holds The Key To His Own Secret. By Your Tampering And Thwarting And Too Much Governing He May Be Hindered From His End And Kept Out Of His Own. Respect The Child. Wait And See The New Product Of Nature. Nature Loves Analogies, But Not Repetitions. Respect The Child. Be Not Too Much His Parent. Trespass Not On His Solitude.

There Is No Architect Can Build As The Muse Can; She Is Skilful To Select Materials For Her Plan.

God Hides Things By Putting Them Near Us.

Of All The Ways To Lose A Person, Death Is The Kindest

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

The Human Body Is A Magazine Of Inventions, The Patent Office, Where Are The Models From Which Every Hint Is Taken. All The Tools And Engines On Earth Are Only Extensions Of Its Limbs And Senses.

If A Man Knows The Law, Find Out, Though He Live In A Pine Shanty, And Resort To Him. And If A Man Can Pipe Or Sing, So As To Wrap The Imprisoned Soul In An Elysium; Or Can Paint A Landscape, And Convey Into Souls And Ochres All The Enchantments Of Spring Or Autumn; Or Can Liberate And Intoxicate All People Who Hear Him With Delicious Songs And Verses; It Is Certain That The Secret Cannot Be Kept; The First Witness Tells It To A Second, And Men Go By Fives And Tens And Fifties To His Doors.

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

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

Other Men Are Lenses Through Which We Read Our Own Minds. Each Man Seeks Those Of Different Quality From His Own, And Such As Are Good Of Their Kind; That Is, He Seeks Other Men, And The Rest.

All Persons Are Puzzles Until At Last We Find In Some Word Or Act The Key To The Man, To The Woman; Straightway All Their Past Words And Actions Lie In Light Before Us.

Science Always Goes Abreast With The Just Elevation Of The Man, Keeping Step With Religion And Metaphysics; Or, The State Of Science Is An Index Of Our Self-knowledge.

Be Not The Slave Of Your Own Past.

The Gothic Cathedral Is A Blossoming In Stone Subdued By The Insatiable Demand Of Harmony In Man.

The Divine Gift Is Ever The Instant Life, Which Receives And Uses And Creates, And Can Well Bury The Old In The Omnipotency With Which Nature Decomposes All Her Harvest For Recomposition.

Speak The Affirmative; Emphasize Your Choice By Utter Ignoring Of All That You Reject.

Our Relations To Each Other Are Oblique And Casual.

I Am A Willow Of The Wilderness, Loving The Wind That Bent Me.

In Youth, We Clothe Ourselves With Rainbows, With Hope & Love, & Go As Brave As The Zodiack. In Age We Put Out Another Sort Of Perspiration; Gout, Fever, Rheumatism, Caprice, Doubt, Fretting, And Avarice.

The Artist Always Has The Masters In His Eyes.

He, Who Loves The Bristle Of Bayonets, Only Sees In Their Glitter What Beforehand He Feels In His Hand.

A Painter Told Me That Nobody Could Draw A Tree Without In Some Sort Becoming A Tree; Or Draw A Child By Studying The Outlines Of Its Form Merely But By Watching For A Time His Motions And Plays, The Painter Enters Into His Nature And Can Then Draw Him At Every Attitude.

Why Should You Renounce Your Right To Traverse The Star-lit Deserts Of Truth, Of The Premature Comforts Of An Acre, House, And Barn? Truth Also Has Its Roof, And Bed, And Board.

My Book Should Smell Of Pines And Resound With The Hum Of Insects.

Character Repudiates Intellect, Yet Excites It; And Character Passes Into Thought, Is Published So, And Then Is Ashamed Before Newflashes Of Moral Worth.

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?

Out Of Plato Come All Things That Are Still Written And Debated About Among Men Of Thought.

[t]omorrow Is A New Day. You Shall Begin It Well & Serenely, & With Too High A Spirit To Be Cumbered With Your Old Nonsense. This Day ... Is Too Dear With Its Hopes & Invitations To Waste A Moment On The Rotten Yesterdays.

We Estimate The Wisdom Of Nations By Seeing What They Did With Their Surplus Capital.

Proverbs, Words, And Grammar Inflections Convey The Public Sense With More Purity And Precision, Than The Wisest Individual.

We Lie In The Lap Of Immense Intelligence, Which Makes Us Receivers Of Its Truth And Organ Of Its Activity. When We Discern Justice, When We Discern Truth, We Do Nothing By Ourselves, But Allow A Passage To Its Beams. If We Ask Whence This Comes, If We Seek To Pry Into The Soul That Causes, All Philosophy Is At Fault. Its Presence Or Its Absence Is All We Can Affirm.

Colleges, In Like Manner, Have Their Indispensable Office,--to Teach Elements. But They Can Only Highly Serve Us, When They Aim Not To Drill, But To Create; When They Gather From Far Every Ray Of Various Genius To Their Hospitable Halls, And, By The Concentrated Fires, Set The Hearts Of Their Youth On Flame.

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.

The Genius Of Reading And Of Gardening Are Antagonistic, Like Resinous And Vitreous Electricity. One Is Concentrative In Sparks And Shocks: The Other Is Diffuse Strength; So That Each Disqualifies Its Workman For The Other's Duties.

Our High Respect For A Well-read Man Is Praise Enough For Literature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Man Must Thank His Defects, And Stand In Some Terror Of His Talents.

A Man Of Thought Must Feel The Thought That Is Parent Of The Universe: That The Masses Of Nature Do Undulate And Flow.

One More Fagot Of These Adamantine Bandages Is The New Science Of Statistics.

A Great Man Stands On God. A Small Man On A Great Man.

For, The Sense Of Being Which In Calm Hours Rises, We Know Not How, In The Soul, Is Not Diverse From Things, From Space, From Light, From Time, From Man, But One With Them, And Proceeds Obviously From The Same Source Whence Their Life And Being Also Proceed. We First Share The Life By Which Things Exist, And Afterwards See Them As Appearances In Nature, And Forget That We Have Shared Their Cause. Here Is The Fountain Of Action And Of Thought.

An Expense Of Ends To Means Is Fate;morganization Tyrannizing Over Character. The Menagerie, Or Forms And Powers Of The Spine, Is A Book Of Fate: The Bill Of The Bird, The Skull Of The Snake, Determines Tyrannically Its Limits.

The Believing We Do Something When We Do Nothing Is The First Illusion Of Tobacco.

As I Walked In The Woods I Felt What I Often Feel That Nothing Can Befall Me In Life, No Calamity, No Disgrace (leaving Me My Eyes) To Which Nature Will Not Offer A Sweet Consolation. Standing On The Bare Ground With My Head Bathed By The Blithe Air, & Uplifted Into The Infinite Space, I Become Happy In My Universal Relations. The Name Of The Nearest Friend Sounds Then Foreign & Accidental. I Am The Heir Of Uncontained Beauty And Power.

The Quality Of The Thought Differences The Egyptian And The Roman, The Austrian And The American.

When A Man Lives With God, His Voice Shall Be As Sweet As The Murmur Of The Brook And Rustle Of The Corn.

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

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

Knowledge, Virtue, Power Are The Victories Of Man Over His Necessities, His March To The Dominion Of The World.

The Kingdom Of Man Over Nature, Which Cometh Not With Observation,--a Dominion Such As Now Is Beyond His Dream Of God,--he Shall Enter Without More Wonder Than The Blind Man Feels Who Is Gradually Restored To Perfect Sight.

Only A Biker Knows Why A Dog Sticks His Head Out Of A Car Window.

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.

Man's Actions Are The Picture Book Of His Creeds.

Tell Them Dear, That If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being: Why Thou Wert There, O Rival Of The Rose! I Never Sought To Ask, I Never Knew: But, In My Simple Ignorance Suppose The Selfsame Power That Brought Me There Brought You.

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

When We Are Young, We Spend Much Time And Pains In Filling Our Note-books With All Definitions Of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, In The Hope That, In The Course Of A Few Years, We Shall Have Condensed Into Our Encyclopaedia The Net Value Of All The Theories At Which The World Has Yet Arrived. But Year After Year Our Tables Get No Completeness, And At Last We Discover That Our Curve Is A Parabola, Whose Arcs Will Never Meet.

There Is, In All Great Poets, A Wisdom Of Humanity Which Is Superior To Any Talents They Exercise.

Conversation Is An Evanescent Relation,--no More.

A Man Builds A Fine House; And Now He Has A Master, And A Task For Life.

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

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.

There Are Eyes, To Be Sure, That Give No More Admission Into The Man Than Blueberries.

Enlarge Not Thy Destiny, Said The Oracle: Endeavor Not To Do More Than Is Given Thee In Charge.

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

The Wise Man In The Storm Prays God Not For Safety From Danger But For Deliverance From Fear. It Is The Storm Within Which Endangers Him[,] Not The Storm Without.

Our Faith Comes In Moments; Our Vice Is Habitual.

Quotation Confesses Inferiority.

But Do Your Work, And I Shall Know You. Do Your Work, And You Shall Reinforce Yourself.

The Language Of The Street Is Always Strong.

The Rain Comes When The Wind Calls.

The Soul Knows Only The Soul; The Web Of Events Is The Flowing Robe In Which She Is Clothed.

Society Is A Masked Ball, Where Every One Hides His Real Character, And Reveals It By Hiding.

You Cannot Make A Cheap Palace.

Instead Of Making Christianity A Vehicle Of Truth, You Make Truth Only A Horse For Christianity.

Truth Is Beautiful Within And Without, Forevermore.

Cut These Words And They Would Bleed; They Are Vascular And Alive.

I Like People Who Can Do Things

It Is One Soul Which Animates All Men.

Can Rules Or Tutors Educate The Semigod Whom We Await? He Must Be Musical, Tremulous, Impressional, Alive To Gentle Influence Of Landscape And Of Sky And Tender To The Spirit-touch Of Man's Or Maiden's Eye.

Often A Certain Abdication Of Prudence And Foresight Is An Element Of Success.

Congratulations

Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

Persecution Readily Knits Friendship Between Its Victims.

Curiosity Is Lying In Wait For Every Secret.

If A Man Fasten His Attention On A Single Aspect Of Truth And Apply Himself To That Alone For A Long Time, The Truth Becomes Distorted And Not Itself But Falsehood.

Plants Are The Young Of The World, Vessels Of Health And Vigor; But They Grope Ever Upward Towards Consciousness; The Trees Are Imperfect Men, And Seem To Bemoan Their Imprisonment, Rooted In The Ground.

We Are Impressed And Even Daunted By The Immense Universe To Be Explored. "what We Know Is A Point To What We Do Not Know."

It Is Impossible For A Man To Be Cheated By Anyone But Himself.

In Art, The Hand Can Never Execute Anything Higher Than The Heart Can Imagine.

Whilst We Want Cities As The Centres Where The Best Things Are Found, Cities Degrade Us By Magnifying Trifles.

As The Eye Is The Best Composer, So Light Is The First Of Painters. There Is No Object So Foul That Intense Light Will Not Make Beautiful; And The Stimulus It Affords To The Sense, And A Sort Of Infinitude Which It Hath Like Space And Time, Make All Matter Gay.

The Years Teach Much Which The Days Never Know.

I Will Do Strongly Before The Sun And Moon Whatever Inly Rejoices Me And The Heart Apoints.

The Ornament Of A House Is The Friends Who Frequent It.

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.

When I Read A Good Book, I Wish My Life Were Three Thousand Years Long.

The True Doctrine Of Omnipresence Is, That God Reappears With All His Parts In Every Moss And Cobweb.

To Get Up Each Morning With The Resolve To Be Happy Is To Set Your Own Conditions To The Events Of Each Day. To Do This Is To Condition Circumstances Instead Of Being Conditioned By Them.

If We Live Truly, We Shall See Truly.

The Mark Of A Man Of The World Is Absence Of Pretension.

The Soul Is No Traveller; The Wise Man Stays At Home, And When His Necessities, His Duties, On Any Occasion Call Him From His House, Or Into Foreign Lands, He Is At Home Still, And Shall Make Men Sensible By The Expression Of His Countenance, That He Goes The Missionary Of Wisdom And Virtue, And Visits Cities And Men Like A Sovereign, And Not Like An Interloper Or A Valet.

Men Such As They Are, Very Naturally Seek Money Or Power; And Power Because It Is As Good As Money.

The Powers Of The Soul Are Commensurate With Its Needs.

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

There Is No Den In The Wide World To Hide A Rogue.

Imagination Is A Very High Sort Of Seeing, Which Does Not Come By Study, But By The Intellect Being Where And What It Sees, By Sharing The Path, Or Circuits Of Things Through Forms, And So Making Them Translucid To Others.

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.

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.

An Original Sentence, A Step Forward, Is Worth More Than All The Censures.

Moderation In All Things, Especially Moderation.

Moderation In All Things

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

Power Is What They Want, Not Candy-power To Execute Their Design, Power To Give Legs And Feet, Form And Actuality To Their Thought; Which, To A Clear-sighted Man, Appears The End For Which The Universe Exists, And All Its Resources Might Be Well Applied.

When The Gods Come Among Men, They Are Not Known.

If Two Or Three Persons Should Come With A High Spiritual Aim And With Great Powers, The World Would Fall Into Their Hands Like A Ripe Peach.

Courage Consists In Equality To The Problem Before Us.

If We Meet No Gods, It Is Because We Harbor None. If There Is Grandeur In You, You Will Find Grandeur In Porters And Sweeps.

We Gain The Strength Of The Temptation We Resist.

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

Concentration Is The Secret Of Strength In Politics, In War, In Trade, In Short In All Management Of Human Affairs.

Focus And Concentration

To Be Is To Live With God.

The Value Of A Dollar Is To Buy Just Things; A Dollar Goes On Increasing In Value With All The Genius And All The Virtue Of The World. A Dollar In A University Is Worth More Than A Dollar In A Jail; In A Temperate, Schooled, Law-abiding Community Than In Some Sink Of Crime, Where Dice, Knives, And Arsenic Are In Constant Play.

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.

We Can Only Obey Our Own Polarity.

Every Natural Power Exhilarates; A True Talent Delights The Possessor First.

It Does Not Hurt Weak Eyes To Look Into Beautiful Eyes Never So Long.

I Cannot Often Enough Say, That A Man Is Only A Relative And Representative Nature. Each Is A Hint Of The Truth, But Far Enough From Being That Truth, Which Yet He Quite Newly And Inevitably Suggests To Us. If I Seek It In Him, I Shall Not Find It.

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.

There Is No Calamity That Right Words Will Not Begin To Redress

Courage Of The Soldier Awakes The Courage Of Woman.

A Lady With Whom I Was Riding In The Forest Said To Me That The Woods Always Seemed To Her To Wait, As If The Genii Who Inhabit Them Suspend Their Deeds Until The Wayfarer Had Passed Onward; A Thought Which Poetry Has Celebrated In The Dance Of The Fairies, Which Breaks Off On The Approach Of Human Feet.

No Nation Has Produced Anything Like His Equal. There Is No Quality In The Human Mind, There Is No Class Of Topics, There Is No Region Of Thought, In Which He Has Not Soared Or Descended, And None In Which He Has Not Said The Commanding Word.

Society Cannot Do Without Cultivated Men. As Soon As The First Wants Are Satisfied, The Higher Wants Become Imperative.

Every Man's Condition Is A Solution In Hieroglyph To Those Inquiries He Would Put. He Acts It As Life Before He Apprehends It As Truth.

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

Let The Soul Be Assured That Somewhere In The Universe It Should Rejoin Its Friend, And It Would Be Content And Cheerful Alone For A Thousand Years.

He Presents Me With What Is Always An Acceptable Gift Who Brings Me News Of A Great Thought Before Unknown. He Enriches Me Without Impoverishing Himself.

We Must Not Tamper With The Organic Motion Of The Soul.

Enthusiasm Is One Of The Most Powerful Engines Of Success. When You Do A Thing, Do It With All Your Might. Put Your Whole Soul Into It. Stamp It With Your Own Personality. Be Active, Be Energetic, Be Enthusiastic And Faithful, And You Will Accomplish Your Object. Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm.

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.

A Man Should Learn To Detect And Watch That Gleam Of Light Which Flashes Across His Mind From Within, More Than The Lustre Of The Firmament Of Bards And Sages. Yet He Dismisses Without Notice His Thought, Because It Is His. In Every Work Of Genius We Recognize Our Own Rejected Thoughts: They Come Back To Us With A Certain Alienated Majesty.

There Is No One Who Does Not Exaggerate!

Exaggeration Is

When The Literary Class Betray A Destitution Of Faith, It Is Not Strange That Society Should Be Disheartened And Sensualized By Unbelief.

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.

Every Man Is As Lazy As He Dares To Be.

Deal In Our Privacy With The Last Honesty And Truth.

How Much Better When The Whole Land Is A Garden, And The People Have Grown Up In The Bowers Of A Paradise.

So Nigh Is Grandeur To Our Dust, So Near Is God To Man, When Duty Whispers Low, 'thou Must,' The Youth Whispers, 'i Can.

Knowledge Exists To Be Imparted.

I Think No Virtue Goes With Size;the Reason Of All Cowardiceis, That Men Are Overgrown,and, To Be Valiant, Must Come Downto The Titmouse Dimension.

Philanthropies And Charities Have A Certain Air Of Quackery.

We Sell The Thrones Of Angels For A Short And Turbulent Pleasure.

The Hand That Rounded Peter's Dome, And Groined The Aisles Of Christian Rome, Wrought In A Sad Sincerity; Himself From God He Could Not Free; He Builded Better Than He Knew: The Conscious Stone To Beauty Grew.

He Who Loves Goodness Harbors Angels, Reveres Reverence, And Lives With God.

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

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

Man Begins Life Helpless. The Babe Is In Paroxysms Of Fear The Moment Its Nurse Leaves It Alone, And It Comes So Slowly To Any Power Of Self-protection That Mothers Say The Salvation Of The Life And Health Of A Young Child Is A Perpetual Miracle.

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.

Are You Not Scared By Seeing That The Gypsies Are More Attractive To Us Than The Apostles?

A Great Licentiousness Treads On The Heels Of A Reformation.

An Orator Or Author Is Never Successful Till He Has Learned To Make His Words Smaller Than His Ideas.

The Poem Is A Confession Of Faith.

When You Have Worn Out Yourshoes, The Strength Of The Shoe Leather Has Passed Into The Fiber Ofyour Body. I Measure Your Health By The Number Of Shoes And Hats Andclothes You Have Worn Out.

A Moody Child And Wildly Wise Pursued The Game With Joyful Eyes, Which Chose, Like Meteors, Their Way, And Rived The Dark With Private Ray.

Miracle Comes To The Miraculous, Not To The Arithmetician.

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

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.

Every Word Was Once A Poem.

Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things.

Yet America Is A Poem In Our Eyes; Its Ample Geography Dazzles The Imagination, And It Will Not Wait Long For Metres.

A Creative Economy Is The Fuel Of Magnificence.

Our Religion Vulgarly Stands On Numbers Of Believers. Whenever The Appeal Is Made--no Matter How Indirectly--to Numbers, Proclamation Is Then And There Made, That Religion Is Not. He That Finds God A Sweet, Enveloping Presence, Who Shall Dare To Come In?

At Times The Whole World Seems To Be In Conspiracy To Importune You With Emphatic Trifles. Friend, Client, Child, Sickness, Fear, Want, Charity, All Knock At Once At Thy Closet Door And Say,—'come Out Unto Us.' But Keep Thy State; Come Not Into Their Confusion. The Power Men Possess To Annoy Me I Give Them By A Weak Curiosity. No Man Can Come Near Me But Through My Act.

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