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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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It Seems As If

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our Age Is Retrospective. It Builds The Sepulchres Of The Fathers. It Writes Biographies, Histories And Criticism.

Every Mind Must Make Its Choice Between Truth And Repose. It Cannot Have Both.

The Most Attractive Class Of People Are Those Who Are Powerful Obliquely, And Not By The Direct Stroke: Men Of Genius, But Not Yetaccredited: One Gets The Cheer Of Their Light, Without Paying Too Great A Tax.

Coolness And Absence Of Heat And Haste Indicate Fine Qualities.

Your Actions Speak So Loud, I Can't Hear What You Say.

The World When Seen Through A Little Child's Eyes, Greatly Resembles Paradise. Happiness Is Doing With A Smile What You Have To Do Anyway. This Time, Like All Time, Is A Very Good One If We But Know What To Do With It.

The Art Of Conversation, Or The Qualification For A Good Companion, Is A Certain Self-control, Which Now Holds The Subject, Now Lets It Go, With A Respect For The Emergencies Of The Moment.

You Do Not Get Power So That You Can Go Out And Do Things, You Go Out And Do Things And You Will Get The Power

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

Magic And All That Is Ascribed To It Is A Deep Presentiment Of The Powers Of Science.

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

The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficient Distance And It Straightens Itself To The Average Tendency.

As Men Get On In Life, They Acquire A Love For Sincerity, And Somewhat Less Solicitude To Be Lulled Or Amused. In The Progress Ofthe Character, There Is An Increasing Faith In The Moral Sentiment, And A Decreasing Faith In Propositions.

Shallow Men Believe In Luck. Strong Men Believe In Cause And Effect.

The Manly Part Is To Do With Might And Main What You Can Do.

There Is Some Reason To Believe That When A Man Does Not Write His Poetry It Escapes By Other Vents Through Him, Instead Of The One Vent Of Writing; Clings To His Form And Manners, Whilst Poets Have Often Nothing Poetical About Them Except Their Verses.

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.

I Consider Theology To Be The Rhetoric Of Morals.

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.

We Seldom See Anybody Who Is Not Uneasy Or Afraid To Live.

Do Not Say Things. What You Are Stands Over You The While, And Thunders, So That I Cannot Hear What You Say To The Contrary.

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.

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.

Science Is Organized Knowledge. Wisdom Is Organized Life. Football Is Four 15-minute Quarters. Plus Timeouts And Commercials.

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?

I Am Constrained Every Moment To Acknowledge A Higher Origin For Events Than The Will I Call Mine.

Every Man Supposes Himself Not To Be Fully Understood; And If There Is Any Truth In Him, If He Rests At Last On The Divine Soul, I See Not How It Can Be Otherwise. The Last Chamber, The Last Closet, He Must Feel, Was Never Opened; There Is Always A Residuum Unknown, Unanalyzable. That Is, Every Man Believes That He Has A Greater Possibility.

Peace Has Its Victories, But It Takes Brave Men And Women To Win Them.

Morality Is The Object Of Government.

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.

Faith And Love Are Apt To Be Spasmodic In The Best Minds: Men Live On The Brink Of Mysteries And Harmonies Into Which Yet They Never Enter, And With Their Hand On The Doorlatch They Die Outside.

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.

Wild Liberty Develops Iron Conscience. Want Of Liberty, By Strengthening Law And Decorum, Stupefies Conscience.

Manners Aim To Facilitate Life, To Get Rid Of Impediments, And Bring The Man Pure To Energize. They Aid Our Dealing And Conversation, As A Railway Aids Travelling, By Getting Rid Of All Avoidable Obstructions Of The Road, And Leaving Nothing To Be Conquered But Pure Space.

Nature Is A Rag Merchant, Who Works Up Every Shred And Ort And End Into New Creations.

Defect In Manners Is Usually The Defect Of Fine Perceptions. Elegance Comes Of No Breeding, But Of Birth.

Every Rational Creature Has All Nature For His Dowry And Estate. It Is His, If He Will. He May Divest Himself Of It; He May Creepinto A Corner, And Abdicate His Kingdom, As Most Men Do, But He Is Entitled To The World By His Constitution.

Daughter Of Time, The Hypocrite Days, Muffled And Dumb Like Barefoot Dervishes, And Marching Single In An Endless File, Bring Diadems And Fagots In Their Hands; To Each They Offer Gifts After His Will, Bread, Kingdom, Stars, And Sky That Holds Them All; I, In My Pleached Garden Watched The Pomp Forgot My Morning Wishes, Hastily Took A Few Herbs And Apples, And The Day Turned And Departed Silent. I Too Late Under Her Solemn Fillet Saw The Scorn.

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

A Little Consideration Of What Takes Place Around Us Every Day Would Show Us That A Higher Law Than That Of Our Will Regulates Events; That Our Painful Labors Are Unnecessary And Fruitless; That Only In Our Easy, Simple, Spontaneous Action Are We Strong . . . . Place Yourself In The Middle Of The Stream Of Power And Wisdom Which Animates All Whom It Floats, And You Are Without Effort Impelled To Truth, To Right, And A Perfect Contentment.

So Shall We Come To Look At The World With New Eyes. It Shall Answer The Endless Inquiry Of The Intellect, — What Is Truth? And Of The Affections, — What Is Good? By Yielding Itself Passive To The Educated Will. ... Build, Therefore, Your Own World. As Fast As You Conform Your Life To The Pure Idea In Your Mind, That Will Unfold Its Great Proportions. A Correspondent Revolution In Things Will Attend The Influx Of The Spirit.

But Only That Soul Can Be My Friend Which I Encounter On The Line Of My Own March, That Soul To Which I Do Not Decline, And Which Does Not Decline Me, But, Native Of The Same Celestial Latitude, Repeats In Its Own All My Experience.

The Soul Lets No Man Go Without Some Visitations And Holy-days Of A Diviner Presence.

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

The Civilized Man Has Built A Coach, But Has Lost The Use Of His Feet.

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.

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

In The Order Of Nature, We Cannot Render Benefits To Those From Whom We Receive Them, Or Only Seldom. But The Benefit We Receive Must Be Rendered Again, Line For Line, Deed For Deed, Cent For Cent, To Somebody. Beware Of Too Much Good Staying In Your Hand. It Will Fast Corrupt And Worm Worms. Pay It Away Quickly In Some Sort.

Where There Is No Vision A People Perish.

Good Writing Is A Kind Of Skating Which Carries Off The Performer Where He Would Not Go.

The Great Object Of Education Should Be Commensurate With The Object Of Life. It Should Be A Moral One; To Teach Self-trust: To Inspire The Youthful Man With An Interest In Himself; With A Curiosity Touching His Own Nature; To Acquaint Him With The Resources Of His Mind, And To Teach Him That There Is All His Strength.

I Have Been Told, That In Some Public Discourses Of Mine My Reverence For The Intellect Has Made Me Unjustly Cold To The Personalrelations. But Now I Almost Shrink At The Remembrance Of Such Disparaging Words. For Persons Are Love's World, And The Coldest Philosopher Cannot Recount The Debt Of The Young Soul Wandering Here In Nature To The Power Of Love, Without Being Tempted To Unsay, As Treasonable To Nature, Aught Derogatory To The Social Instincts.

Find The Journey's End In Every Step.

Make Yourself Necessary To Somebody.

Self Improvement

Friendship Love

As Soon As The Man Is At One With God, He Will Not Beg. He Will Then See Prayer In All Action.

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

Wealth Is In Applications Of Mind To Nature; And The Art Of Getting Rich Consists Not In Industry, Much Less In Saving, But In A Better Order, In Timeliness, In Being At The Right Spot.

I Shun Father And Mother And Wife And Brother, When My Genius Calls Me.

It Has Come To Be Practically A Sort Of Rule In Literature That A Man, Having Once Shown Himself Capable Of Original Writing, Is Entitled Thenceforth To Steal From The Writings Of Others At Discretion.

Culture Implies All Which Gives The Mind Possession Of Its Own Powers, As Languages To The Critic, Telescope To The Astronomer. Culture Alters The Political Status Of An Individual. It Raises A Rival Royalty In A Monarchy. 'tis King Against King. It Is Ever A Romance Of History In All Dynasties--the Co-presence Of The Revolutionary Force In Intellect. It Creates A Personal Independence Which The Monarch Cannot Look Down, And To Which He Must Often Succumb.

Let There Be Worse Cotton And Better Men.

I Find It More Credible, Since It Is Anterior Information, That One Man Should Know Heaven, As The Chinese Say, Than That So Many Men Should Know The World.

Every Individual Man Has A Bias Which He Must Obey, And...it Is Only As He Feels And Obeys This That He Rightly Develops And Attains His Legitimate Power In The World. It Is His Magnetic Needle, Which Points Always In One Direction To His Proper Path.... He Is Never Happy Nor Strong Until He Finds It, Keeps It.

Nature Is A Mutable Cloud Which Is Always And Never The Same.

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 Age Of A Woman Doesn't Mean A Thing. The Best Tunes Are Played On The Oldest Fiddles.

Pain, Indolence, Sterility, Endless Ennui Have Also Their Lesson For You, If You Are Great.

People That Seem So Glorious Are All Show; Underneath They Are Like Everyone Else.

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

I Can Reason Down Or Deny Everything, Except This Perpetual Belly: Feed He Must And Will, And I Cannot Make Him Respectable.

The Idealism Of Berkeley Is Only A Crude Statement Of The Idealism Of Jesus, And That Again Is A Crude Statement Of The Fact Thatall Nature Is The Rapid Efflux Of Goodness Executing And Organizing Itself.

Flowers... Are A Proud Assertion That A Ray Of Beauty Outvalues All The Utilities Of The World.

Why Should We Grope Among The Dry Bones Of The Past, Or Put The Living Generation Into Masquerade Out Of Its Faded Wardrobe?

Do Not Believe That Possibly You Can Escape The Reward Of Your Action.

Things Refuse To Be Mismanaged For Long.

Let The Stoics Say What They Please, We Do Not Eat For The Good Of Living, But Because The Meat Is Savory And The Appetite Is Keen.

Though I Am Weak, Yet God, When Prayed, Cannot Withhold His Conquering Aid.

A Little Integrity Is Better Than Any Career.

After You Have Pumped Your Brains For Thoughts And Verses, There Is A Better Poetry Hinted In Whistling A Tune On Your Walk.

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.

The Only Thing That Can Grow Is The Thing You Give Energy To.

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

We Cannot Forgive Another For Not Being Ourselves.

It Is So Wonderful To Our Neurologists That A Man Can See Without His Eyes, That It Does Not Occur To Them That Is Just As Wonderful That He Should See With Them; And That Is Ever The Difference Between The Wise And The Unwise: The Latter Wonders At What Is Unusual, The Wise Man Wonders At The Usual.

He Takes Men Out Of Time And Makes Them Feel Eternity.

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.

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.

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

For Every Minute You Remain Angry, You Give Up Sixty Seconds Of Peace Of Mind.

For Every Seeing Soul, There Are Two Absorbing Facts - I, And The Abyss.

I Read Your Piece On Plato. Holmes, When You Strike At A King, You Must Kill Him.

The Yankee Is One Who, If He Once Gets His Teeth Set On A Thing, All Creation Can't Make Him Let Go.

A Garden Has This Advantage, That It Makes It Indifferent Where You Live. A Well-laid Garden Makes The Face Of The Country Of No Account; Let That Be Low Or High, Grand Or Mean, You Have Made A Beautiful Abode Worthy Of Man.

There Is No God Dare Wrong A Worm.

There Is No God

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

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.

The Faith That Stands On Authority Is Not Faith.

I Am Always Insincere, As Always Knowing There Are Other Moods.

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

We Are A Puny And Fickle Folk. Avarice, Hesitation, And Following Are Our Diseases.

The Multitude Of False Churches Accredits The True Religion.

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

The Religion Of One Age Is The Literary Entertainment Of The Next.

Passion, Though A Bad Regulator, Is A Powerful Spring. Any Absorbing Passion Has The Effect To Deliver From The Little Coils And Cares Of Every Day: 'tis The Heat Which Sets Our Human Atoms Spinning, Overcomes The Friction Of Crossing Thresholds, And First Addresses In Society, And Gives Us A Good Start And Speed, Easy To Continue, When Once It Is Begun.

What Is Excellent, As God Lives, Is Permanent; Hearts Are Dust, Hearts' Loves Remain, Heart's Love Will Meet Thee Again.

The Health Of The Eye Demands A Horizon.

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

As The Traveler Who Has Lost His Way, Throws His Reins On His Horse's Neck, And Trusts To The Instinct Of The Animal To Find His Road, So Must We Do With The Divine Animal Who Carries Us Through This World

The Field Cannot Be Well Seen From Within The Field. The Astronomer Must Have His Diameter Of The Earth's Orbit As A Base To Fix The Parallax Of Any Other Star

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

Let Us Take Our Bloated Nothingness Out Of The Path Of The Divine Circuits.

The Good Judge Is Not He Who Does Hair-splitting Justice To Every Allegation, But Who, Aiming At Substantial Justice, Rules Something Intelligible Of The Guidance Of Suitors.

The Book, The College, The School Of Art, The Institution Of Any Kind, Stop With Some Past Utterance Of Genius. . . . They Look Backward And Not Forward. But Genius Looks Forward: The Eyes Of Man Are Set In His Forehead, Not In His Hindhead: Man Hopes: Genius Creates. Whatever Talents May Be, If The Man Create Not, The Pure Efflux Of The Deity Is Not His; - Cinders And Smoke There May Be, But Not Yet Flame.

Good Bye, Proud World! I'm Going Home; Thou Art Not My Friend, And I'm Not Thine

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

Every Fact Is Related On One Side To Sensation, And, On The Other, To Morals. The Game Of Thought Is, On The Appearance Of One Of These Two Sides, To Find The Other: Given The Upper, To Find The Under Side.

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.

A Cheerful, Intelligent Face Is The End Of Culture.

Besides, Our Action On Each Other, Good As Well As Evil, Is So Incidental And At Random, That We Can Seldom Hear The Acknowledgments Of Any Person Who Would Thank Us For A Benefit, Without Some Shame And Humiliation. We Can Rarely Strike A Direct Stroke, But Must Be Content With An Oblique One; We Seldom Have The Satisfaction Of Yielding A Direct Benefit, Which Is Directly Received.

Great Men Exist That There Might Be Greater Men.

Chiefly The Sea-shore Has Been The Point Of Departure To Knowledge, As To Commerce. The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most.

Truth Is The Property Of No Individual But Is The Treasure Of All Men.

The Poet 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: They Overleapt The Horizon's Edge, Searched With Apollo's Privilege; Through Man, And Woman, And Sea, And Star, Saw The Dance Of Nature Forward Far; Through Worlds, And Races, And Terms, And Times, Saw Musical Order, And Pairing Rhymes. Olympian Bards Who Sung Divine Ideas Below, Which Always Find Us Young, And Always Keep Us So.

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

Every Known Fact In Natural Science Was Divined By The Presentiment Of Somebody, Before It Was Actually Verified.

Native American

In Every Society Some Men Are Born To Rule, And Some To Advise.

The Reason Of Idleness And Of Crime Is The Deferring Of Our Hopes. Whilst We Are Waiting, We Beguile The Time With Jokes, With Sleep, With Eating, And With Crimes.

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

Society Gains Nothing Whilst A Man, Not Himself Renovated, Attempts To Renovate Things Around Him; He Has Become Tediously Good Insome Particular But Negligent Or Narrow In The Rest; And Hypocrisy And Vanity Are Often The Disgusting Result.

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

By The Irresistible Maturing Of The General Mind, The Christian Traditions Have Lost Their Hold.

But A Public Oration Is An Escapade, A Non-committal, An Apology, A Gag, And Not A Communication, Not A Speech, Not A Man.

The Genius Of The Platonists, Is Intoxicating To The Student, Yet How Few Particulars Of It Can I Detach From All Their Books.

Quotation Confesses Inferiority.

The Resources Of The Scholar Are Proportioned To His Confidence In The Attributes Of The Intellect.

If You Tax Too High, The Revenue Will Yield Nothing.

Guard Your Own Spare Moments. They Are Like Uncut Diamonds.

All Life Is An Experiment. The More Experiments You Make The Better.

I Must Feel Pride In My Friend's Accomplishments As If They Were Mine,--and A Property In His Virtues. I Feel As Warmly When He Ispraised, As The Lover When He Hears Applause Of His Engaged Maiden.

The Superstition Respecting Power And Office Is Going To The Ground. The Stream Of Human Affairs Flows Its Own Way, And Is Very Little Affected By The Activity Of Legislators. What Great Masses Of Men Wish Done, Will Be Done; And They Do Not Wish It For A Freak, But Because It Is Their State And Natural End.

The Domestic Man, Who Loves No Music So Well As His Kitchen Clock, And The Airs Which The Logs Sing To Him As They Burn On The Hearth, Has Solaces Which Others Never Dream Of.

When We Quarrel, How We Wish We Had Been Blameless.

So Far As A Person Thinks; They Are Free.

It Is A Capital Blunder; As You Discover, When Another Man Recites His Charities.

Looking At God Instantly Reduces Our Disposition To Dissent From Our Brother.

The Exceptional Life Depends Not On Working Harder, But On Different, Even Opposite, Actions From Habit And The Crowd.

When Nature Removes A Great Man, People Explore The Horizon For A Successor; But None Comes, And None Will. His Class Is Extinguished With Him. In Some Other And Quite Different Field, The Next Man Will Appear.

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.

Bare Lists Of Words Are Found Suggestive To An Imaginative And Excited Mind.

As Long As Any Man Exists, There Is Some Need Of Him.

Not A Ray Is Dimmed, Not An Atom Worn; Nature's Oldest Force Is As Good As New.

A Sect Or Party Is An Elegant Incognito Devised To Save A Man From The Vexation Of Thinking.

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

Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But The Triumph Of Principles.

Therefore We Value The Poet. All The Argument And All The Wisdom Is Not In The Encyclopedia, Or The Treatise On Metaphysics, Or The Body Of Divinity, But In The Sonnet Or The Play.

God Knows That All Sorts Of Gentlemen Knock At The Door; But Whenever Used In Strictness And With Any Emphasis, The Name Will Be Found To Point At Original Energy.

I Believe It Is The Conviction Of The Purest Men, That The Net Amount Of Man And Man Does Not Much Vary. Each Is Incomparably Superior To His Companion In Some Faculty. His Want Of Skill In Other Directions, Has Added To His Fitness For His Own Work.

Headwinds Are Sore Vexations And The More Passengers The Sorer.

For Each Thorn, There's A Rosebud... For Each Twilight - A Dawn... For Each Trial - The Strength To Carry On, For Each Storm Cloud - A Rainbow... For Each Shadow - The Sun... For Each Parting - Sweet Memories When Sorrow Is Done.

The First In Time And The First In Importance Of The Influences Upon The Mind Is That Of Nature. Every Day, The Sun; And After Sunset, Night And Her Stars. Ever The Winds Blow; Ever The Grass Grows.

There Is No History; Only Biography.

The Motive Of Science Was The Extension Of Man, On All Sides, Into Nature, Till His Hands Should Touch The Stars, His Eyes See Through The Earth, His Ears Understand The Language Of Beast And Bird, And The Sense Of The Wind; And, Through His Sympathy, Heaven And Earth Should Talk With Him. But That Is Not Our Science.

One Can Never Truly Savor Success Until First Tasting Adversity.

Enthusiasm Is One Of The Most Powerful Engines Of Success. When You Do A Thing, Do It With All Your Might.

Enthusiasm For Life

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.

Colleges Hate Geniuses, Just As Convents Hate Saints.

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.

It Is The Fault Of Our Rhetoric That We Cannot Strongly State One Fact Without Seeming To Belie Some Other.

The Possibility Of Interpretation Lies In The Identity Of The Observer With The Observed. Each Material Thing Has Its Celestial Side; Has Its Translation, Through Humanity, Into The Spiritual And Necessary Sphere, Where It Plays A Part As Indestructible As Any Other.

Tis The Old Secret Of The Gods That They Come In Low Disguises. 'tis The Vulgar Great Who Come Dizened With Gold And Jewels. Real Kings Hide Away Their Crowns In Their Wardrobes, And Affect A Plain And Poor Exterior.

A Mob Cannot Be A Permanency: Everybody's Interest Requires That It Should Not Exist, And Only Justice Satisfies All.

Every Ship Is A Romantic Object, Except That We Sail In.

Though We Travel The World Over To Find Beauty, We Must Carry It With Us Or We Find It Not . . . The Difference Between Landscape And Landscape Is Small, But There Is A Great Difference In Beholders.

We Walk Alone In The World.

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 World Belongs To The Energetic.

Nor Has Science Sufficient Humanity, So Long As The Naturalist Overlooks The Wonderful Congruity Which Subsists Between Man And The World; Of Which He Is Lord, Not Because He Is The Most Subtile Inhabitant, But Because He Is Its Head And Heart, And Finds Something Of Himself In Every Great And Small Thing, In Every Mountain Stratum, In Every New Law Of Color, Fact Of Astronomy, Or Atmospheric Influence Which Observation Or Analysis Lay Open.

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.

The Crime Which Bankrupts Men And Nations Is That Of Turning Aside From One's Main Purpose To Serve A Job Here And There.

I Am Not So Foolish As To Declaim Against Forms. Forms Are As Essential As Bodies; But To Exalt Particular Forms, To Adhere To Oneform A Moment After It Is Outgrown, Is Unreasonable, And It Is Alien To The Spirit Of Christ.

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

Go Face The Fire At Sea, Or The Cholera In Your Friend's House, Or The Burglar In Your Own, Or What Danger Lies In The Way Of Duty, Knowing You Are Guarded By The Cherubim Of Destiny. If You Believe In Fate To Your Harm, Believe It, At Least, For Your Good.

We Rail At Trade, But The Historian Of The World Will See That It Was The Principle Of Liberty; That It Settled America, And Destroyed Feudalism, And Made Peace And Keeps Peace; That It Will Abolish Slavery.

Truth Is Beautiful, Without Doubt; But So Are Lies.

Every Day, A Little Sadder, A Little Madder. Will Someone Get Me A Ladder?

For All Our Penny-wisdom, For All Our Soul-destroying Slavery To Habit, It Is Not To Be Doubted That All Men Have Sublime Thoughts; That All Men Value The Few Real Hours Of Life; They Love To Be Heard; They Love To Be Caught Up Into The Vision Of Principles. We Mark With Light In The Memory The Few Interviews We Have Had, In The Dreary Years Of Routine And Of Sin, With Souls That Made Our Souls Wiser; That Spoke What We Thought; That Told Us What We Knew; That Gave Us Leave To Be What We Only Were.

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.

Friendship Requires More Time Than Poor Busy Men Can Usually Command.

A Good Indignation Brings Out All One's Powers.

Cities Force Growth And Make Men Talkative And Entertaining, But They Make Them Artificial. What Possesses Interest For Us Is Thenatural Of Each, His Constitutional Excellence. This Is Forever A Surprise, Engaging And Lovely; We Cannot Be Satiated With Knowing It, And About It; And It Is This Which The Conversation With Nature Cherishes And Guards.

Isolation Must Precede True Society.

Where Dwells The Religion? Tell Me First Where Dwells Electricity, Or Motion, Or Thought Or Gesture. They Do Not Dwell Or Stay Atall. Electricity Cannot Be Made Fast, Mortared Up And Ended, Like London Monument, Or The Tower, So That You Shall Know Where To Find It, And Keep It Fixed, As The English Do With Their Things, Forevermore; It Is Passing, Glancing, Gesticular; It Is A Traveller, A Newness, A Surprise, A Secret Which Perplexes Them, And Puts Them Out.

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

The Boxer's Ring Is The Enjoyment Of The Part Of Society Whose Animal Nature Alone Has Been Developed.

The Best Lightning Rod For Your Protection Is Your Own Spine.

Our Day Of Dependence, Our Long Apprenticeship To The Learning Of Other Lands, Draws To A Close. The Millions, That Around Us Arerushing Into Life, Cannot Always Be Fed On The Sere Remains Of Foreign Harvests.

We Want A State Of Things In Which Crime Will Not Pay, A State Of Things Which Allows Every Man The Largest Liberty Compatible With The Liberty Of Every Other Man.

The Restraining Grace Of Common Sense Is The Mark Of All Valid Minds.

Nobody Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

Shakespeare Carries Us To Such A Lofty Strain Of Intelligent Activity, As To Suggest A Wealth Which Beggars His Own; And We Then Feel That The Splendid Works Which He Has Created, And Which In Other Hours We Extol As A Sort Of Self-existent Poetry, Take No Stronger Hold Of Real Nature Than The Shadow Of A Passing Traveller On The Rock. The Inspiration Which Uttered Itself In Hamlet And Lear Could Utter Things As Good From Day To Day, For Ever.

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