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Let Us Interrogate The Great Apparition, That Shines So Peacefully Around Us.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Let Us Interrogate The

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Let Us Interrogate The Great Apparition, That Shines So Peacefully Around Us.

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Do Not Speak Of God Much. After A Very Little Conversation On The Highest Nature, Thought Deserts Us And We Run Into Formalism.

As Long As Civilization Is Essentially One Of Property, Of Fences, Of Exclusiveness, It Will Be Mocked By Delusions. Our Riches Will Leave Us Sick; There Will Be Bitterness In Our Laughter, And Our Wine Will Burn Our Mouth. Only That Good Profits Which We Can Taste With All Doors Open, And Which Serves All Men.

We Are Always Getting Ready To Live, But Never Living... The Wave Moves Onward But The Particles Of Which It Is Composed Do Not... It Cannot Be But That At Intervals Throughout Society There Are Real Men Intermixed . . . As The Carpenter Puts One Iron Bar In His Bannister For Every Five Or Six Wooden Ones.

Not Out Of Those, On Whom Systems Of Education Have Exhausted Their Culture, Comes The Helpful Giant To Destroy The Old Or To Build The New, But Out Of Unhandselled Savage Nature, Out Of Terrible Druids And Berserkirs, Come At Last Alfred And Shakespeare.

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.

Light Is The First Of Painters. There Is No Object So Foul That Intense Light Will Not Make It Beautiful.

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

Life Loiters At The Book's First Page,-- Ah! Could We Turn The Leaf.

Life Is Unnecessarily Long. Moments Of Insight, Of Fine Personal Relation, A Smile, A Glance,--what Ample Borrowers Of Eternity They Are!

But The Nomads Were The Terror Of All Those Whom The Soil Or The Advantages Of The Market Had Induced To Build Towns. Agriculture Therefore Was A Religious Injunction, Because Of The Perils Of The State From Nomadism.

The Secret Of Success Lies Never In The Amount Of Money, But In The Relation Of Income To Outgo.

Nature Magically Suits A Man To His Fortunes, By Making Them The Fruit Of His Character.

One Must Be An Inventor To Read Well.

Creative Writers

The Idea Of God Ends In A Paltry Methodist Meeting-house.

There Are Many Faculties In Man, Each Of Which Takes Its Turn Of Activity, And That Faculty Which Is Paramount In Any Period And Exerts Itself Through The Strongest Nation, Determines The Civility Of That Age: And Each Age Thinks Its Own The Perfection Of Reason.

A Great Mind Is A Good Sailor, As A Great Heart Is.

Great Men Are Sincere.

The Good Writer Seems To Be Writing About Himself, But Has His Eye Always On That Thread Of The Universe Which Runs Through Himself And All Things.

That Which We Call Character Is A Reserved Force Which Acts Directly By Presence, And Without Means. It Is Conceived Of As A Certain Undemonstrable Force, A Familiar Or Genius, By Whose Impulses The Man Is Guided, But Whose Counsels He Cannot Impart.

I Honor Health As The First Muse, And Sleep As The Condition Of Health. Sleep Benefits Mainly By The Sound Health It Produces; Incidentally Also By Dreams, Into Whose Farrago A Divine Lesson Is Sometimes Slipped.

Conversation Is An Evanescent Relation,--no More.

Consistency Is The Bugbear That Frightens Little Minds.

Fear Is Cruel And Mean. The Political Reigns Of Terror Have Been Reigns Of Madness And Malignity,--a Total Perversion Of Opinion;society Is Upside Down, And Its Best Men Are Thought Too Bad To Live.

The Maker Of A Sentence Launches Out Into The Infinite And Builds A Road Into Chaos And Old Night, And Is Followed By Those Who Hear Him With Something Of Wild, Creative Delight.

Duty Grows Everywhere--like Children, Like Grass.

We Love Flattery, Even Though We Are Not Deceived By It, Because It Shows That We Are Of Importance Enough To Be Courted.

The True Preacher Can Be Known By This, That He Deals Out To The People His Life,--life Passed Through The Fire Of Thought.

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.

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

Pines A Thousand Years Old. Every Year They Must Go Farther For Them: They Recede, Like Beavers And Indians, Before The White Man.

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.

If The Aristocrat Is Only Valid In Fashionable Circles, And Not With Truckmen, He Will Never Be A Leader In Fashion; And If The Man Of The People Cannot Speak On Equal Terms With The Gentleman, So That The Gentleman Shall Perceive That He Is Already Really Of His Own Order, He Is Not To Be Feared.

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.

The First Wealth Is Health.

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.

Tobacco, Coffee, Alcohol, Hashish, Prussic Acid, Strychnine, Are Weak Dilutions; The Surest Poison Is Time. This Cup Which Nature Puts To Our Lips, Has A Wonderful Virtue, Surpassing That Of Any Other Draught. It Opens The Senses, Adds Power, Fills Us With Exalted Dreams, Which We Call Hope, Love, Ambition, Science; Especially It Creates A Craving For Larger Draughts Of Itself.

Teach Me Your Mood, O Patient Stars. Who Climb Each Night, The Ancient Sky. Leaving On Space No Shade, No Scars, No Trace Of Age, No Fear To Die.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage.

The Universe Is The Externalization Of The Soul.

From Within Or From Behind, A Light Shines Through Us Upon Things, And Makes Us Aware That We Are Nothing, But The Light Is All.

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

Society Never Advances. It Recedes As Fast On One Side As It Gains On The Other. It Undergoes Continual Changes: It Is Barbarous, It Is Civilized, It Is Rich, It Is Scientific; But This Change Is Not Amelioration. For Every Thing That Is Given, Something Else Is Taken. Society Acquires New Arts And Loses Old Instincts.

Shallow Men Believe In Luck, Believe In Circumstances: It Was Somebody's Name, Or He Happened To Be There At Right Time, Or It Was So Then, And Another Day It Would Have Been Otherwise. Strong Men Believe In Cause And Effect.

Man Is Physical As Well As Metaphysical, A Thing Of Shreds And Patches, Borrowed Unequally From Good And Bad Ancestors, And A Misfit From The Start.

Youth Is Everywhere In Place.

Could Shakespeare Give A Theory Of Shakespeare?

The Land Is The Appointed Remedy For Whatever Is False And Fantastic In Our Culture. The Continent We Inhabit Is To Be Physic Andfood For Our Mind, As Well As Our Body. The Land, With Its Tranquilizing, Sanative Influences, Is To Repair The Errors Of A Scholastic And Traditional Education, And Bring Us To Just Relations With Men And Things.

The Word Unto The Prophet Spoken Was Writ On Tablets Yet Unbroken: The Word By Seers Or Sibyls Told, In Groves Of Oak Or Fanes Of Gold, Still Floats Upon The Morning Wind, Still Whispers To The Willing Mind.

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

To Accomplish Excellence Or Anything Outstanding, You Must Listen To That Whisper Which Is Heard By You Alone.

You Must Let Go Of A Thing For A New One To Come To You.

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.

Calmness Is Always Godlike.

Who Gave Thee, O Beauty, The Keys Of This Breast,-- Too Credulous Lover Of Blest And Unblest? Say, When In Lapsed Ages Thee Knew I Of Old? Or What Was The Service For Which I Was Sold?

When Duty Whispers Low, Thou Must, The Youth Replies, I Can.

The World Is All Gates, All Opportunities, Strings Of Tension Waiting To Be Struck.

Put The Argument Into A Concrete Shape, Into An Image, Some Hard Phrase, Round And Solid As A Ball, Which They Can See And Handle And Carry Home With Them, And The Cause Is Half Won.

Do Your Thing, And I Shall Know You.

Colleges Hate Geniuses, Just As Convents Hate Saints.

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.

We Shun The Rugged Battle Of Fate Where Strength Is Born.

A Man Is Not To Aim At Innocence, Any More Than He Is To Aim At Hair, But He Is To Keep It.

In Every Situation Do The Thing You Fear. If You Do The Thing You Fear, The Death Of Fear Is Certain.

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

Talent Alone Cannot Make A Writer. There Must Be A Man Behind The Book; A Personality Which, By Birth And Quality, Is Pledged To The Doctrines There Set Forth, And Which Exists To See And State Things So, And Not Otherwise.

When A Whole Nation Is Roaring Patriotism At The Top Of Its Voice, I Am Fain To Explore The Cleanness Of Its Hands And The Purity Of Its Heart.

If Your Friend Has Displeased You, You Shall Not Sit Down To Consider It, For He Has Already Lost All Memory Of The Passage, And Has Doubled His Power To Serve You, And, Ere You Can Rise Up Again, Will Burden You With Blessings.

And Of Poetry, The Success Is Not Attained When It Lulls And Satisfies, But When It Astonishes And Fires Us With New Endeavours After The Unattainable.

He Only Is A Well-made Man Who Has A Good Determination.

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.

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

Don't Waste Life In Doubts And Fears; Spend Yourself On The Work Before You, Well Assured That The Right Performance Of This Hour's Duties Will Be The Best Preparation For The Hours And Ages That Will Follow It.

No Man Thoroughly Understands A Truth Until He Has Contended Against It.

Society Is Infested By Persons Who, Seeing That The Sentiments Please, Counterfeit The Expression Of Them. These We Call Sentimentalists - Talkers Who Mistake The Description For The Thing, Saying For Having.

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

Whilst The Rights Of All As Persons Are Equal, In Virtue Of Their Access To Reason, Their Rights In Property Are Very Unequal. Oneman Owns His Clothes, And Another Owns A Country.

I Am The Lover Of Uncontained And Immortal Beauty. In The Wilderness, I Find Something More Dear And Connate Than In Streets Or Villages. In The Tranquil Landscape, And Especially In The Distant Line Of The Horizon, Man Beholds Somewhat As Beautiful As His Own Nature.

We Aim Above The Mark To Hit The Mark.

To Map Out A Course Of Action And Follow It To An End Requires Some Of The Same Courage That A Soldier Needs.

We Legislate Against Forestalling And Monopoly; We Would Have A Common Granary For The Poor; But The Selfishness Which Hoards Thecorn For High Prices, Is The Preventative Of Famine; And The Law Of Self-preservation Is Surer Policy Than Any Legislation Can Be.

The Way To Mend The Bad World Is To Create The Right World.

There Are Dull And Bright, Sacred And Profane, Coarse And Fine Egotists. It Is A Disease That, Like Influenza, Falls On All Constitutions. In The Distemper Known To Physicians As Chorea, The Patient Sometimes Turns Round, And Continues To Spin Slowly In One Spot. Is Egotism A Metaphysical Varioloid Of This Malady?

Our People Are Slow To Learn The Wisdom Of Sending Character Instead Of Talent To Congress. Again And Again They Have Sent A Man Of Great Acuteness, A Fine Scholar, A Fine Forensic Orator, And Some Master Of The Brawls Has Crunched Him Up In His Hands Like A Bit Of Paper.

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

The Effect Of The Indulgence Of Human Affection Is A Certain Cordial Exhilaration.

There Is Never A Beginning, There Is Never An End, To The Inexplicable Continuity Of This Web Of God, But Always Circular Power Returning Into Itself.

Sorrow Makes Us All Children Again.

The Man For Whom The Law Exists - The Man Of Forms, The Conservative - Is A Tame Man.

The Statue Is Then Beautiful When It Begins To Be Incomprehensible, When It Is Passing Out Of Criticism, And Can No Longer Be Defined By Compass And Measuring-wand, But Demands An Active Imagination To Go With It, And To Say What It Is In The Act Of Doing.

We Are All Inventors, Each Sailing Out On A Voyage Of Discovery, Guided Each By A Private Chart, Of Which There Is No Duplicate. The World Is All Gates, All Opportunities.

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.

As A Man Thinketh, So Is He, And As A Man Chooseth, So Is He.

The Present Is An Edifice Which God Cannot Rebuild.

The True Poem Is The Poet's Mind.

A Farm Is A Good Thing, When It Begins And Ends With Itself, And Does Not Need A Salary, Or A Shop, To Eke It Out.

Any Work Looks Wonderful To Me Except The One Which I Can Do.

A Painter Told Me That Nobody Could Draw A Tree Without In Some Sort Becoming A Tree.

The Men Who Come On The Stage At One Period Are All Found To Be Related To Each Other. Certain Ideas Are In The Air.

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

Shall We Then Judge A Country By The Majority, Or By The Minority? By The Minority, Surely. 'tis Pedantry To Estimate Nations By The Census, Or By Square Miles Of Land, Or Other Than By Their Importance To The Mind Of The Time.

She Shows Us Only Surfaces, But She Is Million-fathoms Deep.

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

What King Has He Not Taught State, As Talma Taught Napoleon? What Maiden Has Not Found Him Finer Than Her Delicacy? What Lover Has He Not Outloved? What Sage Has He Not Outseen? What Gentleman Has He Not Instructed In The Rudeness Of His Behavior?

We Are Ashamed Of Our Thoughts And Often See Them Brought Forth By Others.

But There Is No End To The Praise Of Books, To The Value Of The Library. Who Shall Estimate Their Influence On Our Population Where All The Millions Read And Write ? It Is The Joy Of Nations That Man Can Communicate All His Thoughts, Discoveries And Virtues To Records That May Last For Centuries.

I Have Come To Believe That The Whole World Is An Enigma, A Harmless Enigma That Is Made Terrible By Our Own Mad Attempt To Interpret It As Though It Had An Underlying Truth. 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.

Belief Consists In Accepting The Affirmations Of The Soul; Unbelief In Denying Them.

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

What Is Originality? It Is Being One's Self, And Reporting Accurately What We See And Are.

Meantime The Education Of The General Mind Never Stops. The Reveries Of The True And Simple Are Prophetic. What The Tender Poeticyouth Dreams, And Prays, And Paints Today, But Shuns The Ridicule Of Saying Aloud, Shall Presently Be The Resolutions Of Public Bodies, Then Shall Be Carried As Grievance And Bill Of Rights Through Conflict And War, And Then Shall Be Triumphant Law And Establishment For A Hundred Years, Until It Gives Place, In Turn, To New Prayers And Pictures.

Half A Man's Wisdom Goes With His Courage.

There Is Always Room For A Person Of Force And They Make Room For Many.

Every Man Is Grave Alone.

To Speak Truly, Few Adult Persons Can See Nature. Most Persons Do Not See The Sun. At Least They Have A Very Superficial Seeing. The Sun Illuminates Only The Eye Of The Man, But Shines Into The Eye And Heart Of The Child.

Each Is Liable To Panic, Which Is Exactly, The Terror Of Ignorance Surrendered To The Imagination. Knowledge Is The Encourager, Knowledge That Takes Fear Out Of The Heart, Knowledge And Use, Which Is Knowledge In Practice. They Can Conquer Who Believe They Can. It Is He Who Has Done The Deed Once Who Does Not Shrink From Attempting Again.

Speak Your Latent Conviction. . . Else Tomorrow A Stranger Will Say With Masterly Good Sense Precisely What We Have Thought And Felt All The Time, And We Shall Be Forced To Take With Shame Our Own Opinion From Another.

'well,' Said Red Jacket [to Someone Complaining That He Had Not Enough Time], 'i Suppose You Have All There Is.'

A Mob Is A Society Obodies, Voluntarily Bereaving Themselves Oreason, And Traversing Its Work. The Mob Is Man, Voluntarily Descending To The Nature Othe Beast. Its Fit Hour Oactivity Is Night; Its Actions Are Insane, Like Its Whole Constitution.

Thought Is The Seed Of Action.

Five Minutes Of Today Are Worth As Much To Me, As Five Minutes In The Next Millennium. Let Us Be Poised, And Wise, And Our Own, Today.

If We Follow The Truth, It Will Bring Us Out Safe At Last.

For Splendor, There Must Somewhere Be Rigid Economy. That The Head Of The House May Go Brave, The Members Must Be Plainly Clad, And The Town Must Save That The State May Spend.

The Religions We Call False Were Once True.

It Is For Want Of Self-culture That The Superstition Of Travelling, Whose Idols Are Italy, England, Egypt, Retains Its Fascinationfor All Educated Americans.

Truly Speaking, It Is Not Instruction, But Provocation, That I Can Receive From Another Soul. What He Announces, I Must Find True In Me, Or Reject; And On His Word, Or As His Second, Be He Who He May, I Can Accept Nothing.

My Evening Visitors, If They Cannot See The Clock Should Find The Time In My Face.

Sanity Is Very Rare; Every Man Almost And Every Woman Has A Dash Of Madness.

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.

Music Causes Us To Think Eloquently.

Common Sense Is As Rare As Genius.

The Most Active Lives Have So Much Routine As To Preclude Progress Almost Equally With The Most Inactive.

Spoons And Skimmers You Can Be Undistinguishably Together; But Vases And Statues Require Each A Pedestal For Itself.

I Read The Other Day Some Verses Written By An Eminent Painter Which Were Original And Not Conventional.

Intellect Is Void Of Affection And Sees An Object As It Stands In The Light Of Science, Cool And Disengaged. The Intellect Goes Out Of The Individual, Floats Over Its Own Personality, And Regards It As A Fact, And Not As I And Mine.

We Are Made Aware That Magnitude Of Material Things Is Relative, And All Objects Shrink And Expand To Serve The Passion Of The Poet. Thus, In His Sonnets, The Lays Of Birds, The Scents And Dyes Of Flowers, He Finds To Be The Shadow Of His Beloved; Time, Which Keeps Her From Him, Is His Chest; The Suspicion She Has Awakened, Is Her Ornament

Genius, Even, As It Is The Greatest Good, Is He Greatest Harm.

Conversation Is An Art In Which A Man Has All Mankind For His Competitors, For It Is That Which All Are Practising Every Day While They Live.

The Essence Of All Jokes, Of All Comedy, Seems To Be An Honest Or Well Intended Halfness; A Non Performance Of That Which Is Pretended To Be Performed, At The Same Time That One Is Giving Loud Pledges Of Performance. The Balking Of The Intellect, Is Comedy And It Announces Itself In The Pleasant Spasms We Call Laughter.

People Who Know How To Act Are Never Preachers.

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.

So All That Is Said Of The Wise Man By Stoic Or Oriental Or Modern Essayist, Describes To Each Reader His Own Idea, Describes His Unattained But Attainable Self.

In Nature, All Is Useful, All Is Beautiful. It Is Therefore Beautiful, Because It Is Alive, Moving, Reproductive; It Is Thereforeuseful, Because It Is Symmetrical And Fair. Beauty Will Not Come At The Call Of A Legislature, Nor Will It Repeat In England Or America Its History In Greece. It Will Come, As Always, Unannounced, And Spring Up Between The Feet Of Brave And Earnest Men.

I Confess Myself Utterly At A Loss In Suggesting Particular Reforms In Our Ways Of Teaching. No Discretion That Can Be Lodged With A School-committee, With The Overseers Or Visitors Of An Academy, Of A College, Can At All Avail To Reach These Difficulties And Perplexities, But They Solve Themselves When We Leave Institutions And Address Individuals.

Children Are All Foreigners.

We Do Not Yet Trust The Unknown Powers Of Thought. Whence Came All These Tools, Inventions, Book Laws, Parties, Kingdoms? Out Of The Invisible World, Through A Few Brains. The Arts And Institutions Of Men Are Created Out Of Thought. The Powers That Make The Capitalist Are Metaphysical, The Force Of Method And Force Of Will Makes Trade, And Builds Towns.

The Forest Is My Loyal Friend A Delphic Shrine To Me.

We Don't Grow Old. When We Cease To Grow, We Become Old.

Where Is He Who Seeing A Thousand Men Useless And Unhappy, And Making The Whole Region Forlorn By Their Inaction, And Conscious Himself Of Possessing The Faculty They Want, Does Not Hear His Call To Go And Be Their King?

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

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.

Not Always Can Flowers, Pearls, Poetry, Protestations, Nor Even Home In Another Heart, Content The Awful Soul That Dwells In Clay.

Insist On Yourself. Never Imitate.

Consideration Is The Soil In Which Wisdom May Be Expected To Grow, And Strength Be Given To Every Up-springing Plant Of Duty.

It Is The Dissenter, The Theorist, The Aspirant, Who Is Quitting This Ancient Domain To Embark On Seas Of Adventure, Who Engages Our Interest. Omitting Then For The Present All Notice Of The Stationary Class, We Shall Find That The Movement Party Divides Itself Into Two Classes, The Actors, And The Students.

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

Physical Force Has No Value, Where There Is Nothing Else. Snow In Snow-banks, Fire In Volcanoes And Solfataras Is Cheap. The Luxury Of Ice Is In Tropical Countries, And Midsummer Days. The Luxury Of Fire Is, To Have A Little On Our Hearth; And Of Electricity, Not The Volleys Of The Charged Cloud, But The Manageable Stream On The Battery-wires. So Of Spirit, Or Energy; The Rests Or Remains Of It In The Civil And Moral Man, Are Worth All The Cannibals In The Pacific.

I Like The Church, I Like A Cowl, I Love A Prophet Of The Soul; And On My Heart Monastic Aisles Fall Like Sweet Strains Or Pensive Smiles; Yet Not For All His Faith Can See, Would I That Cowled Churchman Be.

The Good Spirit Never Cared For The Colleges, And Though All Men And Boys Were Now Drilled In Greek, Latin, And Mathematics, It Had Quite Left These Shells High On The Beach, And Was Creating And Feeding Other Matters [science] At Other Ends Of The World.

Excellence Is The New Forever.

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.

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

Poetry Makes Its Own Pertinence, And A Single Stanza Outweighs A Book Of Prose.

Though The Wide Universe Is Full Of Good, No Kernel Of Nourishing Corn Can Come To Him But Through His Toil Bestowed On That Plot Of Ground Which Is Given To Him To Till.

A Good Intention Clothes Itself With Sudden Power. When A God Wishes To Ride, Any Chip Or Pebble Will Bud And Shoot Out Winged Feet, And Serve Him For A Horse.

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.

Overhead The Sanctities Of The Stars Shine Forever-more... Pouring Satire On The Pompous Business Of The Day Which They Close, And Making The Generations Of Men Show Slight And Evanescent.

In The Learned Journal, In The Influential Newspaper, I Discern No Form; Only Some Irresponsible Shadow; Oftener Some Monied Corporation, Or Some Dangler, Who Hopes, In The Mask And Robes Of His Paragraph, To Pass For Somebody. But Through Every Clause And Part Of Speech Of The Right Book I Meet The Eyes Of The Most Determined Men; His Force And Terror Inundate Every Word: The Commas And Dashes Are Alive; So That The Writing Is Athletic And Nimble,--can Go Far And Live Long.

We Judge Others By Their Actions But We Judge Ourselves By Our Intensions.

So Far As A Person Thinks; They Are Free.

A Complete Man Should Need No Auxiliaries To His Personal Presence.

I Will Not Live Out Of Me I Will Not See With Others' Eyes My Good Is Good, My Evil Ill I Would Be Free.

Thefts Never Enrich; Alms Never Impoverish; Murder Will Speak Out Of Stone Walls. The Least Admixture Of A Lie-for Example, The Taint Of Vanity, The Least Attempt To Make A Good Impression, A Favorable Appearance-will Instantly Vitiate The Effect.

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

Bad Times Have A Scientific Value. These Are Occasions A Good Learner Would Not Miss.

One Of The Illusions Of Life Is That The Present Hour Is Not The Critical, Decisive One.

The Wise Man, The True Friend, The Finished Character, We Seek Everywhere, And Only Find In Fragments.

Our Debt To Tradition Through Reading And Conversation Is So Massive, Our Protest So Rare And Insignificant-and This Commonly On The Ground Of Other Reading And Hearing-that In Large Sense, One Would Say There Is No Pure Originality. All Minds Quote. Old And New Make The Warp And Woof Of Every Moment. There Is No Thread That Is Not A Twist Of These Two Strands. By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote. It Is As Difficult To Appropriate The Thoughts Of Others As It Is To Invent.

I Like Sayers Of No Better Than I Like Sayers Of Yes.

Always Scorn Appearances And You Always May.

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions.

Will And Determination

Nobody Trips Over Mountains. It Is The Small Pebble That Causes You To Stumble. Pass All The Pebbles In Your Path And You Will Find You Have Crossed The Mountain. The Mind Does Not Create What It Perceives, Anymore Than The Eye Creates The Rose.

Look Sharply After Your Own Thoughts. They Come Unlooked For, Like A New Bird Seen On Your Trees, And, If You Turn To Your Usual Task, Disappear; And You Shall Never Find That Perception Again; Never, I Say-but Perhaps Years, Ages, And I Know Not What Events And Worlds My Lie Between You And Its Return.

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.

If You Put A Chain Around The Neck Of A Slave, The Other End Fastens Itself Around Your Own.

The State Must Follow, And Not Lead, The Character And Progress Of The Citizen.

We, As We Read, Must Become Greeks, Romans, Turks, Priest And King, Martyr And Executioner; Must Fasten These Images To Some Reality In Our Secret Experience, Or We Shall Learn Nothing Rightly.

O Day Of Days When We Can Read! The Reader And The Book, Either Without The Other Is Naught.

The Wonder Is Always New That Any Sane Man Can Be A Sailor.

The World Is So Beautiful That I Can Hardly Believe It Exists.

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

Tomorrow Is A New Day. You Shall Begin It Well And Serenely

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.

If You Cannot Be Free Be As Free As You Can.

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

Delicious Is A Just And Firm Encounter Of Two In A Thought, In A Feeling.

To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours Is Wisdom.

We Expect A Great Man To Be A Good Reader.

Take Egotism Out And You Would Castrate The Benefactors.

If You Want A Friend You Need To Be A Friend.

It Happens To Us Once Or Twice In A Lifetime To Be Drunk With Some Book Which Probably Has Some Extraordinary Relative Power To Intoxicate Us And None Other; And Having Exhausted That Cup Of Enchantment We Go Groping In Libraries All Our Years Afterwards In The Hope Of Being In Paradise Again.

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Michael M. Honda

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