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It Is Wonderful How Soon A Piano Gets Into A Log-hut On The Frontier. You Would Think They Found It Under A Pine-stump. With It Comes A Latin Grammar, And One Of Those Tow-head Boys Has Written A Hymn On Sunday. Now Let Colleges, Now Let Senates Take Heed! For Here Is One Who, Opening These Fine Tastes On The Basis Of The Pioneer's Iron Constitution, Will Gather All Their Laurels In His Strong Hands.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It Is Wonderful How

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It Is Wonderful How Soon A Piano Gets Into A Log-hut On The Frontier. You Would Think They Found It Under A Pine-stump. With It Comes A Latin Grammar, And One Of Those Tow-head Boys Has Written A Hymn On Sunday. Now Let Colleges, Now Let Senates Take Heed! For Here Is One Who, Opening These Fine Tastes On The Basis Of The Pioneer's Iron Constitution, Will Gather All Their Laurels In His Strong Hands.

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Senators And Presidents Have Climbed So High With Pain Enough, Not Because They Think The Place Specially Agreeable, But As An Apology For Real Worth, And To Vindicate Their Manhood In Our Eyes. This Conspicuous Chair Is Their Compensation To Themselves For Being Of A Poor, Cold, Hard Nature.

Be A Gift And A Benediction.

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.

What School, College, Or Lecture Bring Men Depends On What Men Bring To Carry It Home In.

The Method Of Nature: Who Could Ever Analyze It?

The Martyr Cannot Be Dishonored. Every Lash Inflicted Is A Tongue Of Fame; Every Prison A More Illustrious Abode.

We Live By Our Imagination, Our Admirations, And Our Sentiments.

Each Man Has An Aptitude Born With Him. Do Your Work.

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.

Fear Defeats More People Than Any Other One Thing In The World.

In This Our Talking America, We Are Ruined By Our Good Nature And Listening On All Sides. This Compliance Takes Away The Power Ofbeing Greatly Useful.

Thou Art To Me A Delicious Torment.

Character Is An Invincible Force, Which Acts By Presence And Without Means

Nothing Is Secure But Life, Transition, The Energizing Spirit.

Our Spontaneous Action Is Always The Best. You Cannot, With Your Best Deliberation And Heed, Come So Close To Any Question As Your Spontaneous Glance Shall Bring You.

Our Young People Are Diseased With The Theological Problems Of Original Sin, Origin Of Evil, Predestination, And The Like. These Never Presented A Practical Difficulty To Any Man,--never Darkened Across Any Man's Road, Who Did Not Go Out Of His Way To Seek Them. These Are The Soul's Mumps, And Measles, And Whooping- Coughs, And Those Who Have Not Caught Them Cannot Describe Their Health Or Prescribe A Cure. A Simple Mind Will Not Know These Enemies.

Wealth Brings With It Its Own Checks And Balances. The Basis Of Political Economy Is Noninterference. The Only Safe Rule Is Found In The Self-adjusting Meter Of Demand And Supply. Open The Doors Of Opportunity To Talent And Virtue And They Will Do Themselves Justice, And Property Will Not Be In Bad Hands. In A Free And Just Commonwealth, Property Rushes From The Idle And Imbecile To The Industrious, Brave And Persevering.

Difference Of Opinion Is The One Crime Which Kings Never Forgive.

If The Black Man Is Feeble And Not Important To The Existing Races, Not On A Parity With The Best Race, The Black Man Must Serve,and Be Exterminated. But If The Black Man Carries In His Bosom An Indispensable Element Of A New And Coming Civilization; For The Sake Of That Element, No Wrong Nor Strength Nor Circumstance Can Hurt Him: He Will Survive And Play His Part. So Now, The Arrival In The World Of Such Men As Toussaint, And The Haytian Heroes, Or Of The Leaders Of Their Race In Barbadoes And Jamaica, Outweighs In Good Omen All The English And American Humanity.

All Infractions Of Love And Equity In Our Social Relations Are ... Punished By Fear.

Each Man, If He Attempts To Join Himself To Others, Is On All Sides Cramped And Diminished Of His Proportion; And The Stricter Theunion, The Smaller And The More Pitiful He Is. But Leave Him Alone, To Recognize In Every Hour And Place The Secret Soul, He Will Go Up And Down Doing The Works Of A True Member, And, To The Astonishment Of All, The Work Will Be Done With Concert, Though No Man Spoke.

Contemporary American Psychiatrist It Is A Happy Talent To Know How To Play.

All The Fairy Tales Of Aladdin, Or The Invisible Gyges, Or The Talisman That Opens Kings' Palaces, Or The Enchanted Halls Underground Or In The Sea, Are Only Fictions To Indicated The One Miracle Of Intellectual Enlargement.

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.

Nothing Is At Last Sacred But The Integrity Of Your Own Mind.

Culture Opens The Sense Of Beauty.

It Is With A Good Book As It Is With Good Company.

Men Are Better Than This Theology.

Successful Is The Person Who Has Lived Well, Laughed Often And Loved Much, Who Has Gained The Respect Of Children, Who Leaves The World Better Than They Found It, Who Has Never Lacked Appreciation For The Earth's Beauty, Who Never Fails To Look For The Best In Others Or Give The Best Of Themselves.

If The Vast And The Spiritual Are Omitted, So Are The Practical And The Moral.

As Soon As There Is Life There Is Danger.

To Be Yourself In A World That Is Constantly Trying To Make You Something Else Is The Greatest Accomplishment.

Genius Always Finds Itself A Century Too Early.

Our Prayers Are Prophets.

Knowledge Is The Only Elegance.

What We Love That We Have, But By Desire We Bereave Ourselves Of The Love.

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

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

You Must Treat The Days Respectfully, You Must Be A Day Yourself, And Not Interrogate It Like A College Professor.

The Most Useful Man In The Most Useful World, So Long As Only Commodity Was Served, Would Remain Unsatisfied. But, As Fast As He Sees Beauty, Life Acquires A Very High Value.

Every Natural Action Is Graceful.

In Every Man There Is Something Wherein I May Learn Of Him, And In That I Am His Pupil.

Is It So Bad, Then, To Be Misunderstood? Pythagoras Was Misunderstood, And Socrates, And Jesus, And Luther, And Copernicus, And Galileo, And Newton, And Every Pure And Wise Spirit That Ever Took Flesh. To Be Great Is To Be Misunderstood.

It Is Easy To See That What Is Best Written Or Done By Genius In The World, Was No Man's Work But Came By Wide Social Labor, Whena Thousand Wrought Like One, Sharing The Same Impulse.

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?

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

A Scholar Does Not Wish To Be Always Pumping His Brains; He Wants Gossips.

Ideas Must Work Through The Brains And The Arms Of Good And Brave Men Or They Are No Better Than Dreams.

But It Is Impossible That The Creative Power Should Exclude Itself. Into Every Intelligence There Is A Door Which Is Never Closed,through Which The Creator Passes.

Power Is In Nature The Essential Measure Of Right.

If A Man Is At Heart Just, Then In So Far Is He God; The Safety Of God, The Immortality Of God, The Majesty Of God Do Enter Into That Man With Justice.

We Are Always Getting Ready To Live But Never Living.

Law Of Attraction

Free Should Be The Scholar - Free And Brave.

In Sculpture Did Ever Anybody Call The Apollo A Fancy Piece? Or Say Of The Laocoon How It Might Be Made Different? A Masterpiece Of Art Has In The Mind A Fixed Place In The Chain Of Being, As Much As A Plant Or A Crystal.

Thanks To The Morning Light, Thanks To The Foaming Sea, To The Uplands Of New Hampshire, To The Green-haired Forest Free.

Law Of Contrariness: Our Chief Want In Life Is Somebody Who Shall Make Us Do What We Can. Having Found Them, We Shall Then Hate Them For It.

The Moral Sense Is Always Supported By The Permanent Interest Of The Parties. Else, I Know Not How, In Our World, Any Good Would Ever Get Done.

The Americans Have Many Virtues, But They Have Not Faith And Hope. I Know No Two Words Whose Meaning Is More Lost Sight Of.

I Will No Longer Confer, Differ, Refer, Defer, Prefer, Or Suffer. I Renounce The Whole Tribe Of Fero. I Embrace Absolute Life.

More Than The Diamond Koh-i-noor, Which Glitters Among Their Crown Jewels, They Prize The Dull Pebble Which Is Wiser Than A Man, Whose Poles Turn Themselves To The Poles Of The World, And Whose Axis Is Parallel To The Axis Of The World. Now, Their Toys Are Steam And Galvanism.

And, In Fine, The Ancient Precept, "know Thyself," And The Modern Precept, "study Nature," Become At Last One Maxim.

The Health Of The Eye Seems To Demand A Horizon. We Are Never Tired, So Long As We Can See Far Enough.

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 God- Like Ease And Power.

In The True Mythology, Love Is An Immortal Child, And Beauty Leads Him As A Guide; Nor Can We Express A Deeper Sense Than When We Say, Beauty Is The Pilot Of The Young Soul.

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 Lover Never Sees Personal Resemblances In His Mistress To Her Kindred Or To Others. His Friends Find In Her A Likeness To Hermother, Or Her Sisters, Or To Persons Not Of Her Blood. The Lover Sees No Resemblance Except To Summer Evenings And Diamond Mornings, To Rainbows And The Song Of Birds.

If You Maintain A Dead Church, Contribute To A Dead Bible-society, Vote With A Great Party Either For The Government Or Against It, Spread Your Table Like Base Housekeepers, - Under All These Screens I Have Diffuculty To Detect The Precise Man You Are: And Of Course So Much Force Is Withdrawn From Your Proper Life. But Do Your Work And I Shall Know You. Do Your Work, And You Shall Reinforce Yourself. A Man Must Consider What A Blind-man's Bluff Is This Game Of Conformity. If I Know Your Sect I Anticipate Your Argument.

Yet Some Natures Are Too Good To Be Spoiled By Praise, And Wherever The Vein Of Thought Reaches Down Into The Profound, There Is No Danger From Vanity. Solemn Friends Will Warn Them Of The Danger Of The Head's Being Turned By The Flourish Of Trumpets, But They Can Afford To Smile.

Thy Dangerous Glances Make Women Of Men; New-born, We Are Melting Into Nature Again.

I Am Not Engaged To Christianity By Decent Forms, Or Saving Ordinances; It Is Not Usage, It Is Not What I Do Not Understand, That Binds Me To It -- Let These Be The Sandy Foundations Of Falsehoods. What I Revere And Obey In It Is Its Reality, Its Boundless Charity, Its Deep Interior Life, The Rest It Gives To My Mind, The Echo It Returns To My Thoughts, The Perfect Accord It Makes With My Reason Through All Its Representation Of God And His Providence; And The Persuasion And Courage That Come Out Thence To Lead Me Upward And Onward.

How Much More The Seeker Of Abstract Truth, Who Needs Periods Of Isolation, And Rapt Concentration, And Almost A Going Out Of Thebody To Think!

I Grieve That Grief Can Teach Me Nothing, Nor Carry Me One Step Into Real Nature.

But The Best Read Naturalist Who Lends An Entire And Devout Attention To Truth, Will See That There Remains Much To Learn Of His Relation To The World, And That It Is Not To Be Learned By Any Addition Or Subtraction Or Other Comparison Of Known Quantities, But Is Arrived At By Untaught Sallies Of The Spirit, By A Continual Self-recovery, And By Entire Humility.

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

The Wise Through Excess Of Wisdom Is Made A Fool.

To Fill The Hour──that Is Happiness.

Time Management

A Low Self-love In The Parent Desires That His Child Should Repeat His Character And Fortune.

A Man Is Relieved And Gay When He Has Put His Heart Into His Work And Done His Best; But What He Has Said Or Done Otherwise Shall Give Him No Peace.

Henceforth, Please God, Forever I Forego The Yolk Of Men's Opinions. I Will Be Light-hearted As A Bird And Live With God. I Find Him In The Bottom Of My Heart, And I Hear Continually His Voice Therein.

Sickness Is Poor-spirited, And Cannot Serve Anyone; It Must Husband Its Resources To Live. But Health Or Fullness Answers Its Own Ends, And Has To Spare, Runs Over, And Inundates The Neighborhoods And Creeks Of Other Men's Necessities.

The Heroic Soul Does Not Sell Its Justice And Its Nobleness. It Does Not Ask To Dine Nicely And To Sleep Warm. The Essence Of Greatness Is The Perception That Virtue Is Enough. Poverty Is Its Ornament. It Does Not Need Plenty, And Can Very Well Abide Its Loss.

Say Thank You! I Want To Hear You Say It Now. Out Loud. 'thank You.' You're Saying Thank You Because Your Faith Is So Strong That You Don't Doubt That Whatever The Problem, You'll Get Through It. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know That Even In The Eye Of The Storm, God Has Put A Rainbow In The Clouds. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know There's No Problem Created That Can Compare To The Creator Of All Things. Say Thank You!

If We Encounter A Man Of Rare Intellect, We Should Ask Him What Books He Reads.

Without Ambition One Starts Nothing. Without Work One Finishes Nothing. The Prize Will Not Be Sent To You. You Have To Win It.

The Greatest Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself.

It Is The Same Among The Men And Women, As Among The Silent Trees; Always A Referred Existence, An Absence, Never A Presence And Satisfaction. Is It, That Beauty Can Never Be Grasped? In Persons And In Landscape Is Equally Inaccessible?

The Key To Every Man Is His Thought.

There Is This To Be Said In Favor Of Drinking, That It Takes The Drunkard First Out Of Society, Then Out Of The World.

The Eloquent Man Is He Who Is No Beautiful Speaker, But Who Is Inwardly And Desperately Drunk With A Certain Belief.

To The Attentive Eye, Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty, And In The Same Fields, It Beholds, Every Hour, A Picture Which Was Never Seen Before, And Which Shall Never Be Seen Again.

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.

As Every Man Is Hunted By His Own Daemon, Vexed By His Own Disease, This Checks All His Activity.

But In Our Experience, Man Is Cheap And Friendship Wants Its Deep Sense. We Affect To Dwell With Our Friends In Their Absence, But We Do Not; When Deed, Word, Or Letter Comes Not, They Let Us Go.

Our Chief Want In Life Is Somebody Who Will Make Us Do What We Can.

Genius Is Intellect Constructive.

This One Fact The World Hates; That The Soul Becomes; For That Forever Degrades The Past, Turns All Riches To Poverty, All Reputation To A Shame, Confounds The Saint With The Rogue, Shoves Jesus And Judas Equally Aside.

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

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

Old And New Make The Warp And Woof Of Every Moment. There Is No Thread That Is Not A Twist Of These Two Strands.

The Attraction And Superiority Of California Are In Its Days. It Has Better Days & More Of Them, Than Any Other Country.

Every Experiment, By Multitudes Or By Individuals, That Has A Sensual And Selfish Aim, Will Fail.

Nature Is Good, But Intellect Is Better, As The Law-giver Is Before The Law-receiver.

Nothing Is Dead: Men Feign Themselves Dead, And Endure Mock Funerals And Mournful Obituaries, And There They Stand Looking Out Ofthe Window, Sound And Well, In Some New And Strange Disguise.

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.

We Imperatively Require A Perception Of And A Homage To Beauty In Our Companions. Other Virtues Are In Request In The Field And Workyard, But A Certain Degree Of Taste Is Not To Be Spared In Those We Sit With.

We Live In A System Of Approximations. Every End Is Prospective Of Some Other End, Which Is Also Temporary; A Round And Final Success Nowhere. We Are Encamped In Nature, Not Domesticated.

The Writer, Like A Priest, Must Be Exempted From Secular Labor. His Work Needs A Frolic Health; He Must Be At The Top Of His Condition.

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 Great Part Of Courage Is The Courage Of Having Done The Thing Before.

You Have A Place To Live In This World Which No Other Man Can Occupy; Hence No Competitors.

The Spirit Of Our American Radicalism Is Destructive And Aimless; It Is Not Loving; It Has No Ulterior And Divine Ends; But Is Destructive Only Out Of Hatred And Selfishness.

Give All To Love: Obey Thy Heart; Friends, Kindred, Days, Estate, Good Fame, Plans, Credit, And The Muse,- Nothing Refuse.

Those Who Cannot Tell What They Desire Or Expect, Still Sigh And Struggle With Indefinite Thoughts And Vast Wishes.

If We Suddenly Plant Our Foot, And Say, - I Will Neither Eat Nor Drink Nor Wear Nor Touch Any Food Or Fabric Which I Do Not Know To Be Innocent, Or Deal With Any Person Whose Whole Manner Of Life Is Not Clear And Rational, We Shall Stand Still. Whose Is So? Not Mine; Not Thine; Not His. But I Think We Must Clear Ourselves Each One By The Interrogation, Whether We Have Earned Our Bread To-day By The Hearty Contribution Of Our Energies To The Common Benefit? And We Must Not Cease To Tend To The Correction Of These Flagrant Wrongs, By Laying One Stone Aright Every Day.

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.

It Seems As If Nature, In Regarding The Geologic Night Behind Her, When, In Five Or Six Millenniums, She Had Turned Out Five Or Six Men, As Homer, Phidias, Menu, And Columbus, Was No Wise Discontented With The Result. These Samples Attested The Virtue Of The Tree.

I Shun Father And Mother And Wife And Brother When My Genius Calls Me. I Would Write On The Lintels Of The Door-post, Whim. I Hope That It Is Somewhat Better Than Whim At Last, But We Cannot Spend The Day In Explanation.

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

Win As If You Were Used To It, Lose As If You Enjoyed It For A Change.

We Cannot Forgive Another For Not Being Ourselves.

I Feel The Same Truth How Often In My Trivial Conversation With My Neighbours, That Somewhat Higher In Each Of Us Overlooks This By-play, And Jove Nods To Jove From Behind Each Of Us.

To Be Great, You Must Be Misunderstood

God Is Our Name For The Last Generalization To Which We Can Arrive.

All The World Loves A Lover.

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

We Teach Boys To Be Such Men As We Are. We Do Not Teach Them To Aspire To Be All They Can. We Do Not Give Them A Training As If Webelieved In Their Noble Nature. We Scarce Educate Their Bodies. We Do Not Train The Eye And The Hand. We Exercise Their Understandings To The Apprehension And Comparison Of Some Facts, To A Skill In Numbers, In Words; We Aim To Make Accountants, Attorneys, Engineers; But Not To Make Able, Earnest, Great- Hearted Men.

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

'tis A Superstition To Insist On A Special Diet. All Is Made At Last Of The Same Chemical Atoms.

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

I Give You Joy Of Your Free And Brave Thought. I Have Great Joy In It. I Find Incomparable Things Said Incomparably Well, As They Must Be. I Find The Courage Of Treatment Which So Delights Us, And Which Large Perception Only Can Inspire.

I Consider Theology To Be The Rhetoric Of Morals.

Self-sacrifice Is The Real Miracle Out Of Which All The Reported Miracles Grow. Do Not Go Where The Path May Lead, Go Instead Where There Is No Path And Leave A Trail. Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm. This Time, Like All Times, Is A Very Good One, If We But Know What To Do With It. Shallow Men Believe In Luck. Strong Men Believe In Cause And Effect. The Louder He Talked Of His Honesty, The Quicker We Counted The Silverware.

Nothing Can Work Damage To Me Except Myself; The Harm That I Sustain I Carry About With Me And Never Am A Real Sufferer Except By My Own Fault.

If There Be Any Man Who Thinks The Ruin Of A Race Of Men A Small Matter, Compared With The Last Decoration And Completions Of Hisown Comfort,--who Would Not So Much As Part With His Ice- Cream, To Save Them From Rapine And Manacles, I Think I Must Not Hesitate To Satisfy That Man That Also His Cream And Vanilla Are Safer And Cheaper By Placing The Negro Nation On A Fair Footing Than By Robbing Them.

The Frenchman Invented The Ruffle; The Englishman Added The Shirt.

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

Outside Among Your Fellows, Among Strangers, You Must Preserve Appearances, A Hundred Things You Cannot Do; But Inside, The Terrible Freedom.

Happy Is He Who Looks Only Into His Work To Know If It Will Succeed, Never Into The Times Or The Public Opinion; And Who Writes From The Love Of Imparting Certain Thoughts And Not From The Necessity Of Sale - Who Writes Always To The Unknown Friend.

Great Believers Are Always Reckoned Infidels, Impracticable, Fantastic, Atheistic, And Really Men Of No Account. The Spiritualist Finds Himself Driven To Express His Faith By A Series Of Skepticisms.

Consistency Is The Bugbear That Frightens Little Minds.

Honor And Fortune Exist For Him Who Always Recognizes The Neighborhood Of The Great, Always Feels Himself In The Presence Of High Causes.

The Greatest Homage To Truth Is To Use It.

Sooner Or Later That Which Is Now Life Shall Be Poetry, And Every Fair And Manly Trait Shall Add A Richer Strain To The Song.

It Is Only As A Man Puts Off From Himself All External Support, And Stands Alone, That I See Him To Be Strong And To Prevail.

We Boil At Different Degrees.

Being Different

The Crime Which Bankrupts Men And States Is Job-work-declining From Your Main Design, To Serve A Turn Here And There. Nothing Is Beneath You, If It Is In The Direction Of Your Life, Nothing Is Great Or Desirable If It Is Off From That. I Think We Are Entitled Here To Draw A Straight Line And Say That Society Can Never Prosper But Must Always Be Bankrupts, Until Every Man Does That Which He Was Created To Do.

Fear, Craft And Avarice Cannot Rear A State.

The Art Of Sculpture Is Long Ago Perished To Any Real Effect... It Is The Game Of A Rude And Youthful People, And Not The Manly Labour Of A Wise And Spiritual Nation.

Then, Though I Prize My Friends, I Cannot Afford To Talk With Them And Study Their Visions, Lest I Lose My Own. It Would Indeed Give Me A Certain Household Joy To Quit This Lofty Seeking, This Spiritual Astronomy, Or Search Of Stars, And Come Down To Warm Sympathies With You; But Then I Know Well I Shall Mourn Always The Vanishing Of My Mighty Gods.

The Characteristic Of Genuine Heroism Is Its Persistency. All Men Have Wandering Impulses, Fits And Starts Of Generosity. But When You Have Resolved To Be Great, Abide By Yourself, And Do Not Weakly Try To Reconcile Yourself With The World. The Heroic Cannot Be The Common, Nor The Common The Heroic.

Strong Men Greet War, Tempest, Hard Times. They Wish, As Pindar Said, To Tread The Floors Of Hell, With Necessities As Hard As Iron.

The Crowning Fortune Of A Man Is To Be Born To Some Pursuit Which Finds Him Employment And Happiness, Whether It Be To Make Baskets, Or Broadswords, Or Canals, Or Statues, Or Songs.

I See The Spectacle Of Morning From The Hilltop Over Against My House, From Daybreak To Sunrise, With Emotions Which An Angel Might Share. The Long Slender Bars Of Cloud Float Like Fishes In The Sea Of Crimson Light. From The Earth, As A Shore, I Look Out Into That Silent Sea. I Seem To Partake Its Rapid Transformations; The Active Enchantment Reaches My Dust, And I Dilate And Conspire With The Morning Wind.

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

Cunning Is Strength Withheld.

Because The Soul Is Progressive, It Never Quite Repeats Itself, But In Every Act Attempts The Production Of A New And Fairer Whole.

I Do Not Count The Hours I Spend In Wandering By The Sea; The Forest Is My Loyal Friend, Like God It Useth Me.

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

A Man Should Give Us A Sense Of Mass.

You Must Hear The Birds Song Without Attempting To Render It Into Nouns And Verbs.

I Do Then With My Friends As I Do With My Books. I Would Have Them Where I Can Find Them, But I Seldom Use Them.

The Height Of The Pinnacle Is Determined By The Breadth Of The Base.

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

Commerce Is A Game Of Skill Which Everyone Cannot Play And Few Can Play Well.

Skepticism Is Unbelief In Cause And Effect.

Cause And Effect

Patience And Fortitude Conquer All Things.

'tis A Good Rule In Every Journey To Provide Some Piece Of Liberal Study To Rescue The Hours Which Bad Weather, Bad Company, And Taverns Steal From The Best Economist.

Power Ceases In The Instant Of Repose; It Resides In The Moment Of Transition From A Past To A New State, In The Shooting Of The Gulf, In The Darting To An Aim.

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

It Is Doubtless A Vice To Turn One's Eyes Inward Too Much, But I Am My Own Comedy And Tragedy.

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

Skill To Do Comes Of Doing.

We Grant No Dukedoms To The Few, We Hold Like Rights And Shall; Equal On Sunday In The Pew, On Monday In The Mall. For What Avail The Plough Or Sail, Or Land, Or Life, If Freedom Fail?

Let Us Learn The Meaning Of Economy. Economy Is A High Human Office,--a Sacrament When Its Aim Is Grand, When It Is The Prudence Of Simple Tastes, When It Is Practised For Freedom Or For Love Or Devotion.

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

The Whole Constitution Of Property On Its Present Tenures, Is Injurious, And Its Influence On Persons Deteriorating And Degrading.

When The Night Is Darkest, The Stars Come Out.

A Beautiful Behavior Is Better Than A Beautiful Form; It Gives A Higher Pleasure Than Statues Or Pictures; It Is The Finest Of Fine Arts.

That Which We Do Not Call Education Is More Precious Than That Which We Call So.

The Secret Of Success In Education Is Respecting The Students.

Secret To Success

The Sun Illuminates Only The Eye Of The Man, But Shines Into The Eye And The Heart Of The Child.

What Would Be The Use Of Immortality To A Person Who Cannot Use Well A Half An Hour?

Let Us Be Poised, Wise And Our Own Today.

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.

The Measure Of A Master Is His Success In Bringing All Men Around To His Opinion Twenty Years Later.

Congratulations

A Man Is What He Thinks About All Day Long.

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

The Last Change In Our Point Of View Gives The Whole World A Pictorial Air.

We Honor The Rich Because They Have Externally The Freedom, Power, And Grace Which We Feel To Be Proper To Man, Proper To Us.

There Is Simply The Rose; It Is Perfect In Every Moment Of Its Existence.

The World Is Emblematic. Parts Of Speech Are Metaphors, Because The Whole Of Nature Is A Metaphor Of The Human Mind.

A Good Indignation Brings Out All One's Powers.

History - A Biography Of A Few Stout And Earnest Persons

Announced By All The Trumpets Of The Sky, Arrives The Snow, And, Driving O'er The Fields, Seems Nowhere To Alight: The Whited Air Hides Hills And Woods, The River, And The Heaven, And Veils The Farmhouse At The Garden's End. The Sled And Traveller Stopped, The Courier's Feet Delayed, All Friends Shut Out, The Housemates Sit Around The Radiant Fireplace, Enclosed In A Tumultuous Privacy Of Storm.

The Silence That Accepts Merit As The Most Natural Thing In The World Is The Highest Applause.

The Best Effort Of A Fine Person Is Felt After We Have Left Their Presence.

To Give Money To A Sufferer Is Only A Come-off. It Is Only A Postponement Of The Real Payment, A Bribe Paid For Silence, A Creditsystem In Which A Paper Promise To Pay Answers For The Time Instead Of Liquidation. We Owe To Man Higher Succors Than Food And Fire. We Owe To Man.

Conversation Is Our Account Of Ourselves...conversation Is The Vent Of Character As Well As Thoughts...it Is The Laboratory Of The Student.

The Philanthropists Inquire Whether Transcendentalism Does Not Mean Sloth: They Had As Lief Hear That Their Friend Is Dead, As That He Is A Transcendentalist; For Then Is He Paralyzed, And Can Never Do Anything For Humanity.

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