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Man Is The End Of Nature; Nothing So Easily Organizes Itself In Every Part Of The Universe As He; No Moss, No Lichen Is So Easilyborn; And He Takes Along With Him And Puts Out From Himself The Whole Apparatus Of Society And Condition Extempore, As An Army Encamps In A Desert, And Where All Was Just Now Blowing Sand, Creates A White City In An Hour, A Government, A Market, A Place For Feasting, For Conversation, And For Love.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Man Is The End

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Man Is The End Of Nature; Nothing So Easily Organizes Itself In Every Part Of The Universe As He; No Moss, No Lichen Is So Easilyborn; And He Takes Along With Him And Puts Out From Himself The Whole Apparatus Of Society And Condition Extempore, As An Army Encamps In A Desert, And Where All Was Just Now Blowing Sand, Creates A White City In An Hour, A Government, A Market, A Place For Feasting, For Conversation, And For Love.

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For Flowers That Bloom About Our Feet; For Tender Grass, So Fresh, So Sweet; For Song Of Bird, And Hum Of Bee; For All Things Fair We Hear Or See, Father In Heaven, We Thank Thee!

When We Can't Piece Together The Puzzle Of Our Own Lives, Remember The Best View Of A Puzzle Is From Above. Let Him Help Put You Together.

In Skating Over Thin Ice Our Safety Is In Our Speed.

A Child Is A Curly, Dimpled Lunatic.

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

The Wise Man Always Throws Himself On The Side Of His Assailants. It Is More His Interest Than It Is Theirs To Find His Weak Point.

The Value Of A Dollar Is Social, As It Is Created By Society.

Great Works Of Art Have No More Affecting Lesson For Us Than This. They Teach Us To Abide By Our Own Spontaneous Expression With Good Humored Inflexibility Whether The Whole Cry Of Voices Is On The Other Side.

The Highest Beauty Should Be Plain Set.

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.

Make Your Own Bible. Select And Collect All The Words And Sentences That In All Your Readings Have Been To You Like The Blast Of A Trumpet.

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

I Know Nothing Which Life Has To Offer So Satisfying As The Profound Good Understanding, Which Can Subsist, After Much Exchange Ofgood Offices, Between Two Virtuous Men, Each Of Whom Is Sure Of Himself, And Sure Of His Friend. It Is A Happiness Which Postpones All Other Gratifications, And Makes Politics, And Commerce, And Churches, Cheap.

Sanity Consists In Not Being Subdued By Your Means. Fancy Prices Are Paid For Position, And For The Culture Of Talent, But To Thegrand Interests, Superficial Success Is Of No Account.

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

An Orchard, Good Tillage, Good Grounds, Seem A Fixture, Like A Gold Mine, Or A River, To A Citizen; But To A Large Farmer, Not Much More Fixed Than The State Of The Crop.

God Is Unity, But Always Works In Variety.

There Is No Beautifier Of Complexion, Or Form, Or Behavior, Like The Wish To Scatter Joy And Not Pain Around Us.

The Ocean Is A Large Drop; A Drop Is A Small Ocean.

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

God Screens Us Evermore From Premature Ideas.

We Know That Madness Belongs To Love,--what Power To Paint A Vile Object In Hues Of Heaven.

Infancy Is The Perpetual Messiah, Which Comes Into The Arms Of Fallen Men, And Pleads With Them To Return To Paradise.

The Glance Is Natural Magic. The Mysterious Communication Established Across A House Between Two Entire Strangers, Moves All The Springs Of Wonder. The Communication By The Glance Is In The Greatest Part Not Subject To The Control Of The Will. It Is The Bodily Symbol Of Identity With Nature. We Look Into The Eyes To Know If This Other Form Is Another Self, And The Eyes Will Not Lie, But Make A Faithful Confession What Inhabitant Is There.

Calmness Is Always Godlike.

Astronomy Taught Us Our Insignificance In Nature.

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

Not For Nothing One Face, One Character, One Fact Makes Much Impression On Him, And Another None.

Wherever There Is Power, There Is Age. Don't Be Deceived By Dimples And Curls. I Tell You That Babe Is A Thousand Years Old.

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

I Didn't Find My Friends; The Good Lord Gave Them To Me.

What The Tender And Poetic Youth Dreams To-day, And Conjures Up With Inarticulate Speech, Is To-morrow The Vociferated Result Of Public Opinion, And The Day After Is The Character Of Nations.

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.

Underneath The Inharmonious And Trivial Particulars, Is A Musical Perfection, The Ideal Journeying Always With Us, The Heaven Without Rent Or Seam.

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

The Worthless And Offensive Members Of Society, Whose Existence Is A Social Pest, Invariably Think Themselves The Most Ill-used People Alive, And Never Get Over Their Astonishment At The Ingratitude And Selfishness Of Their Contemporaries.

To The Poet, To The Philosopher, To The Saint, All Things Are Friendly And Sacred, All Events Profitable, All Days Holy, All Men Divine.

To Laugh Often And Love Much; To Win The Respect Of Intelligent Persons And The Affection Of Children; To Earn The Approbation Of Honest Critics And Endure The Betrayal Of False Friends; To Appreciate Beauty.

If You Would Serve Your Brother It Is Fit For You To Serve Him, Do Not Take Back Your Words When You Find That Prudent People Do Not Commend You. Be True To Your Own Act, And Congratulate Yourself If You Have Done Something Strange And Extravagant And Broken The Monotony Of A Decorous Age.

Character Is That Which Can Do Without Success.

The Quality Of The Imagination Is To Flow And Not To Freeze.

The Highest Revelation Is That God Is In Every Man.

The Nonconformist And The Rebel Say All Manner Of Unanswerable Things Against The Existing Republic, But Discover To Our Sense No Plan Of House Or State Of Their Own.

Let Us Learn To Live Coarsely, Dress Plainly, And Lie Hard. The Least Habit Of Dominion Over The Palate Has Certain Good Effects Not Easily Estimated.

People Disparage Knowing And The Intellectual Life, And Urge Doing. I Am Content With Knowing, If Only I Could Know.

The Craft With Which The World Is Made Runs Also Into The Mind And Character Of Men. No Man Is Quite Sane; Each Has A Vein Of Folly In His Composition, A Slight Determination Of Blood To The Head, To Make Sure Of Holding Him Hard To Some One Point Which Nature Has Taken To Heart.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage.

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.

There Is Nothing But Is Related To Us, Nothing That Does Not Interest Us,--kingdom, College, Tree, Horse, Or Iron Show,--the Rootsof All Things Are In Man.

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.

There Is A Crack In Everything God Has Made

It Is True That The Discerning Intellect Of The World Is Always Much In Advance Of The Creative, So That There Are Competent Judges Of The Best Book, And Few Writers Of The Best Books.

The Mind Does Not Create What It Perceives, Any More Than The Eye Creates The Rose.

Pride Ruined The Angels.

The Moral Equalizes All; Enriches, Empowers All. It Is The Coin Which Buys All, And Which All Find In Their Pocket. Under The Whipof The Driver, The Slave Shall Feel His Equality With Saints And Heroes.

When We Have Broken Our God Of Tradition, And Ceased From Our God Of Rhetoric, Then May God Fire The Heart With His Presence.

Men Do Not Believe In The Power Of Education. We Do Not Think We Can Speak To Divine Sentiments In Man, And We Do Not Try. We Renounce All High Aims.

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

The Squirrel Hoards Nuts And The Bee Gathers Honey, Without Knowing What They Do, And They Are Thus Provided For Without Selfishness Or Disgrace.

Duty Grows Everywhere--like Children, Like Grass.

Presently We Pass To Some Other Object Which Rounds Itself Into A Whole As Did The First; For Example, A Well-laid Garden; And Nothing Seems Worth Doing But The Laying~out Of Gardens.

There Is Some Awe Mixed With The Joy Of Our Surprise, When This Poet, Who Lived In Some Past World, Two Or Three Hundred Years Ago, Says That Which Lies Close To My Own Soul, That Which I Also Had Wellnigh Thought And Said.

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

Law Of Attraction

Mysticism Is The Mistake Of An Accidental And Individual Symbol For An Universal One.

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

The Times Are The Masquerade Of The Eternities; Trivial To The Dull, Tokens Of Noble And Majestic Agents To The Wise; The Receptacle In Which The Past Leaves Its History; The Quarry Out Of Which The Genius Of Today Is Building Up The Future.

Men Of God Have Always, From Time To Time, Walked Among Men, And Made Their Commission Felt In The Heart And Soul Of The Commonest Hearer.

A Man Is Reputed To Have Thought And Eloquence; He Cannot, For All That, Say A Word To His Cousin Or His Uncle. They Accuse His Silence With As Much Reason As They Would Blame The Insignificance Of A Dial In The Shade. In The Sun It Will Mark The Hour. Among Those Who Enjoy His Thought, He Will Regain His Tongue.

The Sermon Which I Write Inquisitive Of Truth Is Good A Year After, But That Which Is Written Because A Sermon Must Be Writ Is Musty The Next Day.

Sleep Is Not, Death Is Not; Who Seem To Die Live. House You Were Born In, Friends Of Your Spring-time, Old Man And Young Maid, Day's Toil And It's Guerdon, They Are All Vanishing, Fleeing To Fables, Cannot Be Moored

No Hope So Bright But Is The Beginning Of Its Own Fulfilment.

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

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.

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.

Invention Breeds Invention. No Sooner Is The Electric Telegraph Devised Than Gutta-percha, The Very Material It Requires, Is Found. The Aeronaut Is Provided With Gun-cotton, The Very Fuel He Wants For His Balloon.

All History Is A Record Of The Power Of Minorities, And Of Minorities Of One.

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

There Is Virtue Yet In The Hoe And The Spade, For Learned As Well As For Unlearned Hands. And Labor Is Everywhere Welcome; Alwayswe Are Invited To Work.

If A Man Can Write A Better Book, Preach A Better Sermon, Or Make A Better Mousetrap Than His Neighbor, Though He Build His House In The Woods, The World Will Make A Beaten Path To His Door.

The Foundations Of A Person Are Not In Matter But In Spirit.

Our Expense Is Almost All For Conformity. It Is For Cake That We Run In Debt; 'tis Not The Intellect, Not The Heart, Not Beauty, Not Worship, That Costs So Much.

Language Is A City To The Building Of Which Every Human Being Brought A Stone.

Language And Power

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

Character Is Always Known. Thefts Never Enrich; Alms Never Impoverish; Murder Will Speak Out Of Stone Walls.

Native American

The Transcendentalist Adopts The Whole Connection Of Spiritual Doctrine. He Believes In Miracle, In The Perpetual Openness Of Thehuman Mind To New Influx Of Light And Power; He Believes In Inspiration, And In Ecstacy.

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.

The World-spirit Is A Good Swimmer, And Storms And Waves Can Not Drown Him. He Snaps His Fingers At Laws; And So, Throughout History, Heaven Seems To Affect Low And Poor Means. Through The Years And The Centuries, Through Evil Agents, Through Toys And Atoms, A Great And Beneficent Tendency Irresistibly Streams.

Let Us Make Education Brave And Preventive. Politics Is An Afterwork, A Poor Patching. We Are Always A Little Late... We Shall One Day Learn To Supercede Politics By Education... We Must Begin Higher Up, Namely In Education.

The Great Make Its Feel, First Of All, The Indifference Of Circumstances. They Call Into Activity The Higher Perceptions, And Subdue The Low Habits Of Comfort And Luxury; But The Higher Perceptions Find Their Objects Everywhere; Only The Low Habits Need Palaces And Banquets.

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

The Hearing Ear Is Always Found Close To The Speaking Tongue.

What Is The Foundation Of That Interest All Men Feel In Greek History, Letters, Art, And Poetry, In All Its Periods, From The Heroic Or Homeric Age Down To The Domestic Life Of The Athenians And Spartans, Four Or Five Centuries Later? What But This, That Every Man Passes Personally Through A Grecian Period.

God May Forgive Sins, He Said, But Awkwardness Has No Forgiveness In Heaven Or Earth.

If I Should Go Out Of Church Whenever I Hear A False Sentiment, I Could Never Stay There Five Minutes.

I Covet Truth; Beauty Is Unripe Childhood's Cheat; I Leave It Behind With The Games Of Youth.

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

We Boil At Different Degrees.

Being Different

The Craft Of The Merchant Is This Bringing A Thing Where It Abounds To Where It Is Costly.

But I Cannot Recite, Even Thus Rudely, Laws Of The Intellect, Without Remembering That Lofty And Sequestered Class Of Men Who Have Been Its Prophets And Oracles, The High-priesthood Of The Pure Reason, The Trismegisti, The Expounders Of The Principles Of Thought From Age To Age.

The Dice Of God Are Always Loaded.

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.

Some Will Always Be Above Others. Destroy The Inequality Today, And It Will Appear Again Tomorrow.

It Seems As If The Day Was Not Wholly Profane In Which We Have Given Heed To Some Natural Object.

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

Prosperity Is Something The Businessmen Created For Politicians To Take Credit For

Gold And Iron Are Good To Buy Iron And Gold.

Your Genuine Action Will Explain Itself, And Will Explain Your Other Genuine Actions. Your Conformity Explains Nothing.

We Call The Beautiful The Highest, Because It Appears To Us The Golden Mean, Escaping The Dowdiness Of The Good And The Heartlessness Of The True.

Being Perfectly Well-dressed Gives A Feeling Of Tranquillity That Religion Is Powerless To Bestow.

The Genius Of Life Is Friendly To The Noble, And, In The Dark, Brings Them Friends From Far.

We Are All Wise For Other People, None For Himself.

I Would Put Myself In The Attitude To Look In The Eye An Abstract Truth, And I Cannot. I Blench And Withdraw On This Side And On That. I Seem To Know What He Meant Who Said, No Man Can See God Face To Face And Live.

Genius Appeals To The Future.

A Dilettantism In Nature Is Barren And Unworthy. A Fop Of Fields Is No Better Than His Brother On Broadway.

A Cheerful Intelligent Face Is The End Of Culture, And Success Enough. For It Indicates The Purpose Of Nature And Wisdom Attained.

Immitation Is Suicide.

For It Is Only The Finite That Has Wrought And Suffered; The Infinite Lies Stretched In Smiling Repose.

You Have Just Dined, And However Scrupulously The Slaughterhouse Is Concealed In The Graceful Distance Of Miles, There Is Complicity.

Hidden Away In The Inner Nature Of The Real Man Is The Law Of His Life, And Someday He Will Discover It And Consciously Make Use Of It. He Will Heal Himself, Make Himself Happy And Prosperous, And Life In An Entirely Different World. For He Will Have Discovered That Life Is From Within And Not From Without.

Speak What You Think Today In Hard Words And Tomorrow Speak What Tomorrow Thinks In Hard Words Again, Though It Contradict Every Thing You Said Today.

The Artist Always Has The Masters In His Eyes.

Sorrow Makes Us All Children Again.

Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Every One Of Its Members.

Defect In Manners Is Usually The Defect Of Fine Perceptions. Men Are Too Coarsely Made For The Delicacy Of Beautiful Carriage And Customs. It Is Not Quite Sufficient To Good Breeding, A Union Of Kindness And Independence.

They Think Him The Best Dressed Man, Whose Dress Is So Fit For His Use That You Cannot Notice Or Remember To Describe It.

The Sky Is The Daily Bread Of The Eyes.

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.

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

I Cannot Forgive A Scholar His Homeless Despondency.

The Nonchalance Of Boys Who Are Sure Of A Dinner, And Would Disdain As Much As A Lord To Do Or Say Aught To Conciliate One, Is The Healthy Attitude Of Human Nature.

Moller, In His Essay On Architecture, Taught That The Building Which Was Fitted Accurately To Answer Its End Would Turn Out To Be Beautiful, Though Beauty Had Not Been Intended. I Find The Like Unity In Human Structures Rather Virulent And Pervasive.

Science Is Nothing But The Finding Of Analogy, Identity, In The Most Remote Parts.

The Sanity Of Society Is A Balance Of A Thousand Insanity's.

In Old Persons, When Thus Fully Expressed, We Often Observe A Fair, Plump, Perennial Waxen Complexion, Which Indicates That All The Ferment Of Earlier Days Has Subsided Into Serenity Of Thought And Behavior.

Do The Thing And You Will Have The Power.

The Farmer After Sacrificing Pleasure, Taste, Freedom, Thought, Love, To His Work, Turns Out Often A Bankrupt, Like The Merchant.this Result Might Well Seem Astounding. All This Drudgery, From Cockcrowing To Starlight, For All These Years, To End In Mortgages And The Auctioneer's Flag, And Removing From Bad To Worse. It Is Time To Have The Thing Looked Into, And With A Sifting Criticism Ascertained Who Is The Fool.

Want Is A Growing Giant Whom The Coat Of Have Was Never Large Enough To Cover.

Yet A Man May Love A Paradox, Without Losing Either His Wit Or His Honesty.

We Are The Children Of Many Sires, And Every Drop Of Blood In Us In Its Turn Betrays Its Ancestor.

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

The Society Of The Energetic Class, In Their Friendly And Festive Meetings, Is Full Of Courage, And Of Attempts, Which Intimidatethe Pale Scholar.

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.

How Cunningly Nature Hides Every Wrinkle Of Her Inconceivable Antiquity Under Roses And Violets And Morning Dew!

The Condition Which High Friendship Demands Is Ability To Do Without It.

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

In Eloquence, The Great Triumphs Of The Art Are When The Orator Is Lifted Above Himself; When Consciously He Makes Himself The Mere Tongue Of The Occasion And The Hour, And Says What Cannot But Be Said. Hence The Term "abandonment" To Describe The Self- Surrender Of The Orator. Not His Will, But The Principle On Which He Is Horsed, The Great Connection And Crisis Of Events, Thunder In The Ear Of The Crowd.

The American Who Has Been Confined, In His Own Country, To The Sight Of Buildings Designed After Foreign Models, Is Surprised On Entering York Minster Or St. Peter's At Rome, By The Feeling That These Structures Are Imitations Also,--faint Copies Of An Invisible Archetype.

One Lesson We Learn Early, That In Spite Of Seeming Difference, Men Are All Of One Pattern. We Readily Assume This With Our Mates, And Are Disappointed And Angry If We Find That We Are Premature, And That Their Watches Are Slower Than Ours. In Fact, The Only Sin Which We Never Forgive In Each Other Is Difference Of Opinion.

The Antidote To This Abuse Of Formal Government, Is, The Influence Of Private Character, The Growth Of The Individual.

The Purpose Of Life Seems To Be To Acquaint A Man With Himself And Whatever Science Or Art Or Course Of Action He Engages In Reacts Upon And Illuminates The Recesses Of His Own Mind. Thus Friends Seem To Be Only Mirrors To Draw Out And Explain To Us Ourselves; And That Which Draws Us Nearer Our Fellow Man, Is, That The Deep Heart In One, Answers The Deep Heart In Another, - That We Find We Have (a Common Nature) - One Life Which Runs Through All Individuals, And Which Is Indeed Divine.

As We Grow Old, The Beauty Steals Inward.

A Woman's Strength Is The Unresistible Might Of Weakness.

Skepticism Is Unbelief In Cause And Effect. A Man Does Not See, That, As He Eats, So He Thinks: As He Deals, So He Is, And So He Appears; He Does Not See That His Son Is The Son Of His Thoughts And Of His Actions; That Fortunes Are Not Exceptions But Fruits; That Relation And Connection Are Not Somewhere And Sometimes, But Everywhere And Always; No Miscellany, No Exemption, No Anomaly,--but Method, And An Even Web; And What Comes Out, That Was Put In.

A Right Rule For A Club Would Be, Admit No Man Whose Presence Excludes Any One Topic. It Requires People Who Are Not Surprised Andshocked, Who Do And Let Do, And Let Be, Who Sink Trifles, And Know Solid Values, And Who Take A Great Deal For Granted.

Look Out! Behind You!

Knowledge Is The Only Elegance.

All Public Facts Are To Be Individualized, All Private Facts Are To Be Generalized.

Man Is Timid And Apologetic; He Is No Longer Upright; He Dares Not Say "i Think," "i Am," But Quotes Some Saint Or Sage.

It Is One Of The Beautiful Compensations In This Life That No One Can Sincerely Try To Help Another Without Helping Himself.

The Civility Of The World Has Reached That Pitch That Their More Moral Genius Is Becoming Indispensable, And The Quality Of This Race Is To Be Honored For Itself.

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.

Genius Borrows Nobly.

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

This Is My Wish For You: Comfort On Difficult Days, Smiles When Sadness Intrudes, Rainbows To Follow The Clouds, Laughter To Kiss Your Lips, Sunsets To Warm Your Heart, Hugs When Spirits Sag, Beauty For Your Eyes To See, Friendships To Brighten Your Being, Faith So That You Can Believe, Confidence For When You Doubt, Courage To Know Yourself, Patience To Accept The Truth, Love To Complete Your Life.

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

But, If A Man Would Be Alone, Let Him Look At The Stars. The Rays That Come From These Heavenly Worlds, Will Separate Between Him And What He Touches. One Might Think The Atmosphere Was Made Transparent With This Design, To Give Man, In The Heavenly Bodies, The Perpetual Presence Of The Sublime... But Every Night Come Out These Envoys Of Beauty, And Light The Universe With Their Admonishing Smile.

Behind Us, As We Go, All Things Assume Pleasing Forms, As Clouds Do Far Off. Not Only Things Familiar And Stale, But Even The Tragic And Terrible, Are Comely, As They Take Their Place In The Pictures Of Memory.

Deep Insight Will Always, Like Nature, Ultimate Its Thought In A Thing.

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

My Life Is For Itself And Not For A Spectacle.

The True Artist Has The Planet For His Pedestal; The Adventurer, After Years Of Strife, Has Nothing Broader Than His Shoes.

If We Walk In The Woods, We Must Feed Mosquitoes.

Things Are In The Saddle. And Ride Mankind.

Transcendentalism

Of Course, He Who Has Put Forth His Total Strength In Fit Actions, Has The Richest Return Of Wisdom.

We Must Be Lovers, And At Once The Impossible Becomes Possible.

Impossible Becomes Possible

It Is A Greater Joy To See The Author's Author, Than Himself.

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

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

The Soul Of God Is Poured Into The World Through The Thoughts Of Men.

Without A Rich Heart, Wealth Is An Ugly Beggar.

There Is No History; Only Biography.

When He Has Seen, That It Is Not His, Nor Any Man's, But It Is The Soul Which Made The World, And That It Is All Accessible To Him, He Will Know That He, As Its Minister, May Rightfully Hold All Things Subordinate And Answerable To It.

History Is Full, Down To This Day, Of The Imbecility Of Kings And Governors. They Are A Class Of Persons Much To Be Pitied, For They Know Not What They Should Do.

The Only Way To Have A Friend Is To Be One.

Be Yourself; No Base Imitator Of Another, But Your Best Self. There Is Something Which You Can Do Better Than Another. Listen To The Inward Voice And Bravely Obey That. Do The Things At Which You Are Great, Not What You Were Never Made For.

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

If You Criticize A Fine Genius, The Odds Are That You Are Out Of Your Reckoning, And, Instead Of The Poet, Are Censuring Your Owncaricature Of Him.

You Have First An Instinct, Then An Opinion, Then A Knowledge, As The Plant Has Root, Bud, And Fruit.

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.

The Next Best Thing To Saying A Good Thing Yourself Is To Quote One.

The Horseman Serves The Horse, The Neat-herd Serves The Neat, The Merchant Serves The Purse, The Eater Serves His Meat; 'tis The Day Of The Chattel, Web To Weave, And Corn To Grind, Things Are In The Saddle, And Ride Mankind.

Happy Will The House Be In Which The Relationships Are Formed From Character.

For All Symbols Are Fluxional; All Language Is Vehicular And Transitive, And Is Good, As Ferries And Horses Are, For Conveyance, Not As Farms And Houses Are, For Homestead.

Riding A Horse Is Not A Gentle Hobby, To Be Picked Up And Laid Down Like A Game Of Solitaire. It Is A Grand Passion. It Seizes A Person Whole And Once It Has Done So, He/she Will Have To Accept That His Life Will Be Radically Changed.

Men In All Ways Are Better Than They Seem.

Every Man Is A Borrower And A Mimic, Life Is Theatrical And Literature A Quotation.

When It Is Dark Enough, Men See The Stars.

I Suppose An Entire Cabinet Of Shells Would Be An Expression Of The Whole Human Mind; A Flora Of The Whole Globe Would Be So Likewise, Or A History Of Beasts; Or A Painting Of All The Aspects Of The Clouds. Everything Is Significant.

Find The Journey's End In Every Step.

Some People Will Tell You There Is A Great Deal Of Poetry And Fine Sentiment In A Chest Of Tea.

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