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Man Is The Broken Giant, And In All His Weakness Both His Body And His Mind Are Invigorated By Habits Of Conversation With Nature.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Man Is The Broken

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Man Is The Broken Giant, And In All His Weakness Both His Body And His Mind Are Invigorated By Habits Of Conversation With Nature.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tis A Short Sight To Limit Our Faith In Laws To Those Of Gravity, Of Chemistry, Of Botany, And So Forth.

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions. All Life Is An Experiment. The More Experiments You Make The Better. What If They Are A Little Coarse And You May Get Your Coat Soiled Or Torn? What If You Do Fail, And Get Fairly Rolled In The Dirt Once Or Twice? Up Again, You Shall Never Be So Afraid Of A Tumble.

We Have A Great Deal More Kindness Than Is Ever Spoken. (despite) All The Selfishness That Chills Like East Winds The World, The Whole Human Family Is Bathed With An Element Of Love Like A Fine Ether... The Effect Of The Indulgence Of This Human Affection Is A Certain Cordial Exhilaration.

Coal Is A Portable Climate.

So In Accepting The Leading Of The Sentiments, It Is Not What We Believe Concerning The Immortality Of The Soul, Or The Like, But The Universal Impulse To Believe, That Is The Material Circumstance, And Is The Principal Fact In This History Of The Globe.

For No Man Can Write Anything Who Does Not Think That What He Writes Is, For The Time, The History Of The World.

Wild Liberty Breeds Iron Conscience; Natures With Great Impulses Have Great Resources, And Return From Far.

Insist Upon Yourself. Be Original.

Funny Basketball

We Are Born Believing. A Man Bears Beliefs As A Tree Bears Apples.

Why Should The Way I Feel Depend On The Thoughts In Someone Else's Head?

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

The Nobler The Truth Or Sentiment, The Less Imports The Question Of Authorship.

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

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.

A Friend May Be Nature's Most Magnificent Creation.

The President Proclaims War, And Those Senators Who Dissent Are Not Those Who Know Better, But Those Who Can Afford To...democracy Becomes A Government Of Bullies Tempered By Editors.

The Delicious Faces Of Children, The Beauty Of School-girls, "the Sweet Seriousness Of Sixteen," The Lofty Air Of Well-born, Well-bred Boys, The Passionate Histories In The Looks And Manners Of Youth And Early Manhood, And The Varied Power In All That Well-known Company That Escort Us Through Life,--we Know How These Forms Thrill, Paralyze, Provoke, Inspire, And Enlarge Us.

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

Again, The Great Number Of Cultivated Men Keep Each Other Up To A High Standard. The Habit Of Meeting Well-read And Knowing Men Teaches The Art Of Omission And Selection.

A Man Comes To Measure His Greatness By The Regrets, Envies And Hatreds Of His Competitors.

Though We Love Goodness And Not Stealing, Yet Also We Love Freedom And Not Preaching.

It Is One Soul Which Animates All Men.

The Power Men Possess To Annoy Me I Give Them By A Weak Curiosity

A Man Finds Room In The Few Square Inches Of The Face For The Traits Of All His Ancestors; For The Expression Of All His History, And His Wants.

What You Do Speaks So Loud That I Cannot Hear What You Say.

I Am Ashamed To See What A Shallow Village Tale Our So-called History Is.

The Solar System Has No Anxiety About Its Reputation.

The State Of Society Is One In Which The Members Have Suffered Amputation From The Trunk, And Strut About So Many Walking Monsters, - A Good Finger, A Neck, A Stomach, An Elbow, But Never A Man. Man Is Thus Metamorphosed Into A Thing, Into Many Things. The Planter, Who Is Man Sent Out Into The Field To Gather Food, Is Seldom Cheered By Any Idea Of The True Dignity Of His Ministry. He Sees His Bushel And His Cart, And Nothing Beyond, And Sinks Into The Farmer, Instead Of Man On The Farm.

The Eye Of Prudence May Never Shut.

Guard Well Your Spare Moments. They Are Like Uncut Diamonds. Discard Them And Their Value Will Never Be Known. Improve Them And They Will Become The Brightest Gems In A Useful Life.

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

There Is No Man Of Nature's Worth In The Circle Of The Earth.

Between Cultivated Minds The First Interview Is The Best.

There Is Nothing We Value And Hunt And Cultivate And Strive To Draw To Us, But In Some Hour We Turn And Rend It.

Society Has Really No Graver Interest Than The Well-being Of The Literary Class.

And Last Of All, High Over Thought, In The World Of Morals, Fate Appears As Vindicator, Levelling The High, Lifting The Low, Requiring Justice In Man, And Always Striking Soon Or Late When Justice Is Not Done. What Is Useful Will Last, What Is Hurtful Will Sink.

The Eye Is The Best Of Artists.

There Is A Principle Which Is The Basis Of Things, Which All Speech Aims To Say, And All Action To Evolve, A Simple, Quiet, Undescribed, Undescribable Presence, Dwelling Very Peacefully In Us, Our Rightful Lord: We Are Not To Do, But To Let Do; Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon.

Everything In Nature Goes By Law, And Not By Luck.

Youth Is Everywhere In Place.

Money Is Of No Value; It Cannot Spend Itself. All Depends On The Skill Of The Spender.

None Believeth In The Soul Of Man, But Only In Some Man Or Person Old And Departed.

Stand Guard At The Portal Of Your Mind.

Society Always Consists In The Greatest Part, Of Young And Foolish Persons.

A Man In Pursuit Of Greatness Feels No Little Wants.

A Man Should Not Go Where He Cannot Carry His Whole Sphere Or Society With Him,mnot Bodily, The Whole Circle Of His Friends, But Atmospherically. He Should Preserve In A New Company The Same Attitude Of Mind And Reality Of Relation, Which His Daily Associates Draw Him To, Else He Is Shorn Of His Best Beams, And Will Be An Orphan In The Merriest Club.

Life Is Not Intellectual Or Critical, But Sturdy. Its Chief Good Is For Well-mixed People Who Can Enjoy What They Find, Without Question.

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.

Colleges Hate Geniuses, Just As Convents Hate Saints.

These Are The Voices Which We Hear In Solitude, But They Grow Faint And Inaudible As We Enter Into The World. Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Everyone Of Its Members. Society Is A Joint-stock Company, In Which The Members Agree, For The Better Securing Of His Bread To Each Shareholder, To Surrender The Liberty And Culture Of The Eater. The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity. Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

Love, Which Is The Essence Of God, Is Not For Levity, But For The Total Worth Of Man.

No Rent-roll Nor Army-list Can Dignify Skulking And Dissimulation: And The First Point Of Courtesy Must Always Be Truth, As Really All The Forms Of Good-breeding Point That Way.

The Remedy For All Blunders, The Cure Of Blindness, The Cure Of Crime, Is Love.

Perhaps It Is The Lowest Of The Qualities Of An Orator, But It Is, On So Many Occasions, Of Chief Importance,--a Certain Robust And Radiant Physical Health; Or--shall I Say?--great Volumes Of Animal Heat.

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.

The World Is Upheld By The Veracity Of Good Men: They Make The Earth Wholesome. They Who Lived With Them Found Life Glad And Nutritious. Life Is Sweet And Tolerable Only In Our Belief In Such Society.

Society, To Be Sure, Does Not Like This Very Well; It Saith, Whoso Goes To Walk Alone, Accuses The Whole World; He Declares All To Be Unfit To Be His Companions; It Is Very Uncivil, Nay, Insulting; Society Will Retaliate.

There Never Was A Strong Character That Was Not Made Strong By Discipline Of The Will; There Never Was A Strong People That Did Not Rank Subordination And Discipline Among The Signal Virtues. Subjection To Moods Is The Mark Of A Deteriorating Morality. There Is No Baser Servitude Than That Of The Man Whose Caprices Are His Masters, And A Nation Composed Of Such Men Could Not Long Preserve Its Liberties.

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

Today Is A King In Disguise.

All Good Conversation, Manners, And Action Come From A Spontaneity Which Forgets Usages And Makes The Moment Great.

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.

I Have Only One Doctrine, The Infinitude Of The Private Man.

Politics Is A Deleterious Profession, Like Some Poisonous Handicrafts.

I Am Ashamed To See What A Shallow Village Tale Our So-called History Is. How Many Times Must We Say Rome, And Paris, And Constantinople! What Does Rome Know Of Rat And Lizard? What Are Olympiads And Consulates To These Neighboring Systems Of Being? Nay, What Food Or Experience Or Succor Have They For The Esquimaux Seal-hunter, Or The Kanaka In His Canoe, For The Fisherman, The Stevedore, The Porter?

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.

Beauty Without Expression Is Boring.

All Goes To Show That The Soul In Man Is Not An Organ, But Animates And Exercises All The Organs; Is Not A Function, Like The Power Of Memory, Of Calculation, Of Comparison, But Uses These As Hands And Feet; Is Not A Faculty, But A Light, Is Not The Intellect Or The Will, But The Master Of The Intellect And The Will; Is The Background Of Our Being, In Which They Lie,--an Immensity Not Possessed And That Cannot Be Possessed.

Every Man Passes His Life In The Search After Friendship.

I Hate The Prostitution Of The Name Of Friendship To Signify Modish And Worldly Alliances.

Frankness Invites Frankness.

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

Anger Is That Powerful Internal Force That Blows Out The Light Of Reason.

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.

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

Let A Stoic Open The Resources Of Man, And Tell Men They Are Not Leaning Willows, But Can And Must Detach Themselves; That With The Exercise Of Self-trust, New Powers Shall Appear.

Desire Is Possibility Seeking Expression.

Spirit, That Made Those Heroes Dare To Die, And Leave Their Children Free, Bid Time And Nature Gently Spare The Shaft We Raise To Them And Thee.

Nature: She Pardons No Mistakes. Her Yea Is Yea, And Her Nay, Nay.

In The First Place, All Books That Get Fairly Into The Vital Air Of The World Were Written By The Successful Class, By The Affirming And Advancing Class, Who Utter What Tens Of Thousands Feel Though They Cannot Say.

There Is A Third Silent Party To All Our Bargains. The Nature And Soul Of Things Takes On Itself The Guaranty Of The Fulfillment Of Every Contract, So That Honest Service Cannot Come To Loss. If You Serve An Ungrateful Master, Serve Him The More. Put God In Your Debt. Every Stroke Shall Be Repaid. The Longer The Payment Is Withholden, The Better For You; For Compound Interest On Compound Interest Is The Rate And Usage Of This Exchequer.

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

The Young Man Reveres Men Of Genius, Because, To Speak Truly, They Are More Himself Than He Is.

Everything That Is Popular, It Has Been Said, Deserves The Attention Of Philosophers: And This Is For The Obvious Reason, That Although It May Not Be Of Any Worth In Itself, Yet It Characterizes The People.

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.

Never Lose An Opportunity To See Anything That Is Beautiful. It Is God's Handwriting A Wayside Sacrament. Welcome It In Every Fair Face, Every Fair Sky, Every Fair Flower.

The Customer Is The Immediate Jewel Of Our Souls. Him We Flatter, Him We Feast, Compliment, Vote For, And Will Not Contradict.

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

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.

Next To The Originator Of A Good Sentence Is The First Quoter Of It.

The Life Of Man Is The True Romance, Which When It Is Valiantly Conduced, Will Yield The Imagination A Higher Joy Than Any Fiction.

I Wiped Away The Weeds And Foam, I Fetched My Sea-borne Treasures Home.

Speech Is Better Than Silence; Silence Is Better Than Speech.

God Had Infinite Time To Give Us.... He Cut It Up Into A Near Succession Of New Mornings, And, With Each, Therefore, A New Idea, New Inventions, And New Applications.

Tis The Good Reader That Makes The Good Book; A Good Head Cannot Read Amiss: In Every Book He Finds Passages Which Seem Confidences Or Asides Hidden From All Else And Unmistakeably Meant For His Ear.

Something Is Wanting To Science Until It Has Been Humanised.

Fine Manners Need The Support Of Fine Manners In Others.

Painting Was Called Silent Poetry And Poetry Speaking Painting.

The Secret Is The Answer To All That Has Been, All That Is, And All That Will Ever Be.

Law Of Attraction

It Is A Fact Often Observed, That Men Have Written Good Verses Under The Inspiration Of Passion, Who Cannot Write Well Under Other Circumstances.

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

Sleep Takes Off The Costume Of Circumstance, Arms Us With Terrible Freedom, So That Every Will Rushes To A Deed.

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.

All Writing Is By The Grace Of God. People Do Not Deserve To Have Good Writing, They Are So Pleased With Bad. In These Sentences That You Show Me, I Can Find No Beauty, For I See Death In Every Clause And Every Word. There Is A Fossil Or A Mummy Character Which Pervades This Book. The Best Sepulchers, The Vastest Catacombs, Thebes And Cairo, Pyramids, Are Sepulchers To Me. I Like Gardens And Nurseries. Give Me Initiative, Spermatic, Prophesying, Man-making Words.

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?

Of All Tools, An Observatory Is The Most Sublime. . . . What Is So Good In A College As An Observatory? The Sublime Attaches To The Door And To The First Stair You Ascent, That This Is The Road To The Stars.

I Do Not Wish To Please Him; I Wish That He Should Wish To Please Me.

Those Who Listened To Lord Chatham Felt That There Was Something Finer In The Man, Than Anything Which He Said.

Self Confidence

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.

Imitation Cannot Go Above Its Model.

We Do What We Can, And Then Make A Theory To Prove Our Performance The Best.

There Is Also Something Excellent In Every Audience,--the Capacity Of Virtue. They Are Ready To Be Beatified.

Miracle Comes To The Miraculous, Not To The Arithmetician.

At Times The Whole World Seems To Be In Conspiracy To Importune You With Emphatic Trifles.

Any Relation To The Land, The Habit Of Tilling It, Or Mining It, Or Even Hunting On It, Generates The Feeling Of Patriotism. He Who Keeps Shop On It, Or He Who Merely Uses It As A Support To His Desk And Ledger, Or To His Manufactory, Values It Less.

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

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

The Secret Of The Illusoriness Is In The Necessity Of A Succession Of Moods Or Objects. Gladly We Would Anchor, But The Anchorageis Quicksand.

He Who Is In Love Is Wise And Is Becoming Wiser, Sees Newly Every Time He Looks At The Object Beloved, Drawing From It With His Eyes And His Mind Those Virtues Which It Possesses.

But I Go With My Friend To The Shore Of Our Little River, And With One Stroke Of The Paddle, I Leave The Village Politics And Personalities, Yes, And The World Of Villages And Personalities Behind, And Pass Into A Delicate Realm Of Sunset And Moonlight, Too Bright Almost For Spotted Man To Enter Without Novitiate And Probation.

But What Is Classification But The Perceiving That These Objects Are Not Chaotic, And Are Not Foreign, But Have A Law Which Is Also The Law Of The Human Mind?

The Right Eloquence Needs No Bell To Call The People Together, And No Constable To Keep Them.

What Is The Imagination? Only An Arm Or Weapon Of The Interior Energy; Only The Precursor Of The Reason.

Men Love To Wonder, And That Is The Seed Of Science.

The Eyes Indicate The Antiquity Of The Soul.

Society Acquires New Arts, And Loses Old Instincts.

Transcendentalism

Best Masters For The Young Writer And Speaker Are The Fault- Finding Brothers And Sisters At Home Who Will Not Spare Him, But Willpick And Cavil, And Tell The Odious Truth.

Life Only Avails, Not The Having Lived.

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.

Many A Profound Genius, I Suppose, Who Fills The World With Fame Of His Exploding Renowned Errors, Is Yet Everyday Posed And Baffled By Trivial Questions At His Own Supper Table.

He Who Loves The Bristle Of Bayonets Only Sees In The Glitter What Beforehand He Feels In His Heart. It Is Avarice And Hatred; It Is That Quivering Lip, That Cold, Hating Eye, Which Built Magazines And Powder-houses.

He In Whom The Love Of Truth Predominates . . . Submits To The Inconvenience Of Suspense And Imperfect Opinion; But He Is A Candidate For Truth . . . And Respects The Highest Law Of His Being.

Man Is Not A Farmer, Or A Professor, Or An Engineer, But He Is All. Man Is Priest, And Scholar, And Statesman, And Producer, And Soldier.

The True Poem Is The Poet's Mind.

The Wheels And Springs Of Man Are All Set To The Hypothesis Of The Permanence Of Nature. We Are Not Built Like A Ship To Be Tossed, But Like A House To Stand.

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.

The Poor And The Low Have Their Way Of Expressing The Last Facts Of Philosophy As Well As You. "blessed Be Nothing," And "the Worse Things Are, The Better They Are," Are Proverbs Which Express The Transcendentalism Of Common Life.

To Say Then, The Majority Are Wicked, Means No Malice, No Bad Heart In The Observer, But, Simply That The Majority Are Unripe, Andhave Not Yet Come To Themselves, Do Not Yet Know Their Opinion.

Everyone I Meet Is In Some Way My Superior.

If You Would Rule The World Quietly, You Must Keep It Amused.

Nobody Is Glad In The Gladness Of Another, And Our System Is One Of War, Of An Injurious Superiority. Every Child Of The Saxon Race Is Educated To Wish To Be First. It Is Our System; And A Man Comes To Measure His Greatness By The Regrets, Envies, And Hatreds Of His Competitors.

A Judge May Be A Farmer; But He Is Not To Geld His Own Pigs.

Travel Is A Fools Paradise.

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

Rude Poets Of The Tavern Hearth, Squandering Your Unquoted Mirth, Which Keeps The Ground, And Never Soars, While Jake Retorts, And Reuben Roars; Tough And Screaming, As Birch-bark, Goes Like Bullet To Its Mark; While The Solid Curse And Jeer Never Balk The Waiting Ear.

The Finest Wits Have Their Sediment.

The Instincts Of The Ant Are Very Unimportant, Considered As The Ants; But The Moment A Ray Of Relation Is Seen To Be A Monitor, A Little Body With A Mighty Heart, Then All Its Habits, Even That Said To Be Recently Observed, That It Never Sleeps, Become Sublime.

We Acquire The Strength We Have Overcome.

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.

But Harder Still It Has Proved To Resist And Rule The Dragon Money, With His Paper Wings. Chancellors And Boards Of Trade, Pitt, Peel, And Bobinson, And Their Parliaments, And Their Whole Generation, Adopted False Principles, And Went To Their Graves In The Belief That They Were Enriching The Country Which They Were Impoverishing.

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

As Gas-light Is Found To Be The Best Nocturnal Police, So The Universe Protects Itself By Pitiless Publicity.

I Remember An Answer Which When Quite Young I Was Prompted To Make A Valued Adviser Who Was Wont To Importune Me With The Dear Old Doctrines Of The Church. On My Saying, What Have I To Do With The Sacredness Of Traditions, If I Live Wholly From Within? My Friend Suggested, - "but These Impulses May Be From Below, Not From Above." I Replied, 'they Do Not Seem To Me To Be Such; But If I Am The Devil's Child, I Will Live Then From The Devil.'

In Nature, All Is Useful, All Is Beautiful

The Americans Have No Faith, They Rely On The Power Of A Dollar; They Are Deaf To Sentiment.

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

Remarkable Trait In The American Character Is The Union, Not Very Infrequent, Of Yankee Cleverness With Spiritualism.

That Which Shows God In Me, Fortifies Me. That Which Shows God Out Of Me, Makes Me A Wart And A Wen.

Positive Atheism

Do Not You See That Every Misfortune Is Misconduct; That Every Honour Is Desert; That Every Effort Is An Insolence Of Your Own?...you Carry Your Fortune In Your Own Hand.

So Much Of Our Time Is Spent In Preparation, So Much In Routine, And So Much In Retrospect, That The Amount Of Each Person's Genius Is Confined To A Very Few Hours.

Draw, If Thou Canst, The Mystic Line, Severing Rightly His From Thine, Which Is Human, Which Divine.

For All Men Live By Truth, And Stand In Need Of Expression. In Love, In Art, In Avarice, In Politics, In Labor, In Games, We Study To Utter Our Painful Secret. The Man Is Only Half Himself, The Other Half Is His Expression.

People Say Law But They Mean Wealth.

Money Often Costs Too Much, And Power And Pleasure Are Not Cheap.

When You Have Worn Out Your Shoes, The Strength Of The Show Fiber Has Passed Into Your Body.

The Charm Of Fine Manners Is Music And Sculpture And Picture To Many Who Do Not Pretend To Appreciation Of These Arts.

There Is A Time In Every Man's Education When He Arrives At The Conviction That Envy Is Ignorance; That Imitation Is Suicide.

Culture Is The Suggestion, From Certain Best Thoughts, That A Man Has A Range Of Affinities Through Which He Can Modulate The Violence Of Any Master-tones That Have A Droning Preponderance In His Scale, And Succor Him Against Himself. Culture Redresses This Imbalance, Puts Him Among Equals And Superiors, Revives The Delicious Sense Of Sympathy, And Warns Him Of The Dangers Of Solitude And Repulsion.

The World We Live In Is But Thickened Light.

In The Moment When You Make The Least Petition To God, Though It Be But A Silent Wish That He May Approve You, Or Add One Moment To Your Life,--do You Not, In The Very Act, Necessarily Exclude All Other Beings From Your Thought? In That Act, The Soul Stands Alone With God, And Jesus Is No More Present To Your Mind Than Your Brother Or Your Child.

The People Know That They Need In Their Representative Much More Than Talent, Namely, The Power To Make His Talent Trusted.

Human Society Is Made Up Of Partialities. Each Citizen Has An Interest And A View Of His Own, Which, If Followed Out To The Extreme, Would Leave No Room For Any Other Citizen.

The Student Is To Read History Actively And Not Passively.

Solitude Is Impractical And Yet Society Is Fatal.

The Visible Heavens And Earth Sympathize With Jesus.

The Babe In Arms Is A Channel Through Which The Energies We Call Fate, Love, And Reason Visibly Stream.

When There Is Sympathy, There Needs But One Wise Man In A Company And All Are Wise,--so, A Blockhead Makes A Blockhead Of His Companion. Wonderful Power To Benumb Possesses This Brother.

Men Have Sometimes Exchanged Names With Their Friends, As If They Would Signify That In Their Friend Each Loved His Own Soul.

For This Present, Hard Is The Fortune Of The Bard, Born Out Of Time; All His Accomplishment, From Nature's Utmost Treasure Spent, Booteth Not Him.

A Great Man Scarcely Knows How He Dines, How He Dresses; But Without Railing Or Precision, His Living Is Natural And Poetic.

There Are People Who Have An Appetite For Grief; Pleasure Is Not Strong Enough And They Crave Pain. They Have Mithridatic Stomachs Which Must Be Fed On Poisoned Bread, Natures So Doomed That No Prosperity Can Sooth Their Ragged And Dishevelled Desolation.

A Good Reader Makes A Good Book

A Man Is A Method, A Progressive Arrangement; A Selecting Principle, Gathering His Like To Him; Wherever He Goes.

The Reason Why Any One Refuses His Assent To Your Opinion, Or His Aid To Your Benevolent Design, Is In You: He Refuses To Accept You As A Bringer Of Truth, Because, Though You Think You Have It, He Feels That You Have It Not. You Have Not Given Him The Authentic Sign.

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

The Tendencies Of The Times Favor The Idea Of Self-government, And Leave The Individual, For All Code, To The Rewards And Penalties Of His Own Constitution, Which Work With More Energy Than We Believe, Whilst We Depend On Artificial Restraints.

Though We Travel The World Over To Find The Beautiful, We Must Carry It With Us, Or We Find It Not. The Best Of Beauty Is A Finer Charm Than Skill In Surfaces, In Outlines, Or Rules Of Art Can Ever Teach, Namely, A Radiation From The Work Of Art Of Human Character, — A Wonderful Expression Through Stone, Or Canvas, Or Musical Sound, Of The Deepest And Simplest Attributes Of Our Nature, And Therefore Most Intelligible At Last To Those Souls Which Have These Attributes.

The Lover Of Nature Is He Whose Inward And Outward Senses Are Still Truly Adjusted To Each Other.

There Is No Chance And Anarchy In The Universe. All Is System And Gradation. Every God Is There Sitting In His Sphere.

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.

Let Not The Tie Be Mercenary, Though The Service Is Measured In Money. Make Yourself Necessary To Somebody. Do Not Make Life Hard To Any.

A Beautiful Person Among The Greeks, Was Thought To Betray By This Sign Some Secret Favor Of The Immortal Gods; And We Can Pardonpride, When A Woman Possesses Such A Figure That Wherever She Stands, Or Moves, Or Leaves A Shadow On The Wall, Or Sits For A Portrait To The Artist, She Confers A Favor On The World.

Bring Me Wine, But Wine Which Never Grew In The Belly Of The Grape

Man Is The Dwarf Of Himself.

When A Dog Is Chasing After You, Whistle For Him.

The Paid Wealth Which Hundreds In The Community Acquire In Trade, Or By The Incessant Expansions Of Our Population And Arts, Enchants The Eyes Of All The Rest; The Luck Of One Is The Hope Of Thousands, And The Bribe Acts Like The Neighborhood Of A Gold Mine To Impoverish The Farm, The School, The Church, The House, And The Very Body And Feature Of Man.

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.

A Man Should Carry Nature In His Head.

The Work Of Vegetation Begins First In The Irritability Of The Bark And Leaf-buds.

Wherever There Is Power There Is Age.

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