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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Meantime The Education Of

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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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.

Cannot We Let [children] Be Themselves, And Enjoy Life In Their Own Way? You Are Trying To Make Another You. One's Enough.

We Sell The Thrones Of Angels For A Short And Turbulent Pleasure.

Who Looks Upon A River In A Meditative Hour And Is Not Reminded Of The Flux Of All Things?

The Secret Of Culture Is To Learn, That A Few Great Points Steadily Reappear, Alike In The Poverty Of The Obscurest Farm, And In The Miscellany Of Metropolitan Life, And That These Few Are Alone To Be Regarded,--the Escape From All False Ties; Courage To Be What We Are; And Love What Is Simple And Beautiful; Independence And Cheerful Relation, These Are The Essentials,--these, And The Wish To Serve,--to Add Somewhat To The Well-being Of Men.

Government Exists To Defend The Weak And The Poor And The Injured Party; The Rich And The Strong Can Better Take Care Of Themselves.

Every Moment Instructs, And Every Object; For Wisdom Is Infused Into Every Form. It Has Been Poured Into Us As Blood; It Convulsed Us As Pain; It Slid Into Us As Pleasure; It Enveloped Us In Dull, Melancholy Days, Or In Days Of Cheerful Labor; We Did Not Guess Its Essence Until After Long Time.

Society Is The Stage On Which Manners Are Shown; Novels Are The Literature. Novels Are The Journal Or Record Of Manners; And The New Importance Of These Books Derives From The Fact, That The Novelist Begins To Penetrate The Surface, And Treat This Part Of Life More Worthily.

Here Is The World, Sound As A Nut, Perfect, Not The Smallest Piece Of Chaos Left, Never A Stitch Nor An End, Not A Mark Of Haste, Or Botching, Or Second Thought; But The Theory Of The World Is A Thing Of Shreds And Patches.

The Two Parties Which Divide The State, The Party Of Conservation And That Of Innovation, Are Very Old, And Have Disputed The Possession Of The World Ever Since It Was Made.

At Times The Whole World Seems To Be In Conspiracy To Importune You With Emphatic Trifles. Friend, Client, Child, Sickness, Fear, Want, Charity, All Knock At Once At Thy Closet Door And Say,—'come Out Unto Us.' But Keep Thy State; Come Not Into Their Confusion. The Power Men Possess To Annoy Me I Give Them By A Weak Curiosity. No Man Can Come Near Me But Through My Act.

By The Rude Bridge That Arched The Flood, Their Flag To April's Breeze Unfurled, Here Once The Embattled Farmers Stood, And Fired The Shot Heard Round The World.

Behind Every Individual Closes Organization; Before Him Opens Liberty,--the Better, The Best. The First And Worse Races Are Dead.the Second And Imperfect Races Are Dying Out, Or Remain For The Maturing Of The Higher. In The Latest Race, In Man, Every Generosity, Every New Perception, The Love And Praise He Extorts From His Fellows, Are Certificates Of Advance Out Of Fate Into Freedom.

The Two Parties Which Divide The State, The Party Of Conservatism And That Of Innovation Are Very Old, And Have Disputed The Possession Of The World Ever Since It Was Made ... Now One, Now The Other Gets The Day, And Still The Fight Renews Itself As If For The First Time, Under New Names And Hot Personalities ... Innovation Is The Salient Energy; Conservatism The Pause On The Last Movement.

We Wake From One Dream Into Another Dream.

Even In The Mud And Scum Of Things, Something Always, Always Sings.

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.

Nature Wishes That Woman Should Attract Man, Yet She Often Cunningly Moulds Into Her Face A Little Sarcasm, Which Seems To Say, 'yes, I Am Willing To Attract, But To Attract A Little Better Kind Of A Man Than Any I Yet Behold

The Profoundest Thought Or Passion Sleeps As In A Mine, Until An Equal Mind And Heart Finds And Publishes It.

I Hope In These Days We Have Heard The Last Of Conformity And Consistency. Let The Words Be Gazetted And Ridiculous Henceforward.instead Of The Gong For Dinner, Let Us Hear A Whistle From The Spartan Fife.

But Man Postpones Or Remembers; He Does Not Live In The Present, But With Reverted Eye Laments The Past, Or, Heedless Of The Riches That Surround Him, Stands On Tiptoe To Foresee The Future. He Cannot Be Happy And Strong Until He Too Lives With Nature In The Present, Above Time.

Whatever Limits Us We Call Fate.

In My Utter Impotence To Test The Authenticity Of The Report Of My Senses, To Know Whether The Impressions They Make On Me Correspond With Outlying Objects, What Difference Does It Make, Whether Orion Is Up There In Heaven, Or Some God Paints The Image In The Firmament Of The Soul?

The Beautiful Rests On The Foundations Of The Necessary.

All Things Are Moral; And In Their Boundless Changes Have An Unceasing Reference To Spiritual Nature.

Doubt Not, O Poet, But Persist. Say 'it Is In Me, And Shall Out.' Stand There, Balked And Dumb, Stuttering And Stammering, Hissed And Hooted, Stand And Strive, Until At Last Rage Draw Out Of Thee That Dream-power Which Every Night Shows Thee Is Thine Own; A Power Transcending All Limit And Privacy, And By Virtue Of Which A Man Is The Conductor Of The Whole River Of Electricity.

The Flowers Talk When The Wind Blows Over Them.

When We Are Young, We Spend Much Time And Pains In Filling Our Note-books With All Definitions Of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, In The Hope That, In The Course Of A Few Years, We Shall Have Condensed Into Our Encyclopaedia The Net Value Of All The Theories At Which The World Has Yet Arrived. But Year After Year Our Tables Get No Completeness, And At Last We Discover That Our Curve Is A Parabola, Whose Arcs Will Never Meet.

Sculpture And Painting Have The Effect Of Teaching Us Manners And Abolishing Hurry.

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

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

Music Causes Us To Think Eloquently.

We Fancy Men Are Individuals; So Are Pumpkins; But Every Pumpkin In The Field Goes Through Every Point Of Pumpkin History.

What Forests Of Laurel We Bring, And The Tears Of Mankind, To Those Who Stood Firm Against The Opinion Of Their Contemporaries!

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

Skepticism? Yes, But A Saint Is A Skeptic Once In Twenty-four Hours.

The Health Of The Eye Demands A Horizon.

The Finest Wits Have Their Sediment.

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

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

The Great Will Not Condescend To Take Anything Seriously.

Ethics And Religion Differ Herein; That The One Is The System Of Human Duties Commencing From Man; The Other, From God. Religion Includes The Personality Of God; Ethics Does Not.

In Spite Of Warnings, Change Rarely Occurs Until The Status Quo Becomes More Painful Than Change. People Seem Not To See That Their Opinion Of The World Is Also A Confession Of Their Character.

Standing On The Bare Ground,--my Head Bathed By The Blithe Air And Uplifted Into Infinite Space,--all Mean Egotism Vanishes. I Become A Transparent Eyeball; I Am Nothing; I See All; The Currents Of The Universal Being Circulate Through Me; I Am Part Or Parcel Of God.

The Richest Of All Lords Is Use, And Ruddy Health The Loftiest Muse. Live In The Sunshine, Swim The Sea, Drink The Wild Air's Salubrity.

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.

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

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.

When We Attempt To Define And Describe God, Both Language And Thought Desert Us, And We Are As Helpless As Fools And Savages.

A Third Felicity Of Age Is That It Has Found Expression. The Youth Suffers Not Only From Ungratified Desires, But From Powers Untried, And From A Picture In His Mind Of A Career Which Has As Yet No Outward Reality. He Is Tormented With The Want Of Correspondence Between Things And Thoughts.

It Is Very Unhappy, But Too Late To Be Helped, The Discovery We Have Made, That We Exist

To Be Gret Is To Be Misunderstood.

To Be Is To Live With God.

All My Best Thoughts Were Stolen By The Ancients.

All Our Progress Is An Unfolding, Like The Vegetable Bud. You Have First An Instinct, Then An Opinion, Then A Knowledge, As The Plant Has Root, Bud, And Fruit. Trust The Instinct To The End, Though You Can Render No Reason. It Is Vain To Hurry It. By Trusting It To The End It Shall Ripen Into Truth, And You Shall Know Why You Believe.

Our Life Is An Apprenticeship To The Truth That Around Every Circle Another Can Be Drawn; That There Is No End In Nature, But Every End Is A Beginning, And Under Every Deep A Lower Deep Opens.

We Are Like Travellers Using The Cinders Of A Volcano To Roast Their Eggs. Whilst We See That It Always Stands Ready To Clothe What We Would Say, We Cannot Avoid The Question Whether The Characters Are Not Significant Of Themselves.

A Man Of Genius Is Privileged Only As Far As He Is Genius. His Dullness Is As Insupportable As Any Other Dullness.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose ... We Distinguish The Announcements Of The Soul, Its Manifestations Of Its Own Nature, By The Term Revelation. These Are Always Attended By The Emotion Of The Sublime. For This Communication Is An Influx Of The Divine Mind Into Our Mind. It Is An Ebb Of The Individual Rivulet Before The Flowing Surges Of The Sea Of Life. Every Distinct Apprehension Of This Central Commandment Agitates Men With Awe And Delight.

The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance.

We Aim Above The Mark, To Hit The Mark. Every Act Hath Some Falsehood Of Exaggeration In It.

Whom God Has Put Asunder, Why Should Man Put Together?

To The Birds And Trees He Talks: Caesar Of His Leafy Rome, There The Poet Is At Home.

There Is No History; Only Biography.

The Secret Of Drunkenness Is, That It Insulates Us In Thought, Whilst It Unites Us In Feeling.

There Are Faces So Fluid With Expression, So Flushed And Rippled By The Play Of Thought, That We Can Hardly Find What The Mere Features Really Are. When The Delicious Beauty Of Lineament Loses Its Power, It Is Because A More Delicious Beauty Has Appeared, That An Interior And Durable Form Has Been Disclosed.

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.

What Is Life But The Angle Of Vision? A Man Is Measured By The Angle At Which He Looks At Objects.

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

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

The Hero Is Suffered To Be Himself.

Good Writing Is A Kind Of Skating Which Carries Off The Performer Where He Would Not Go, And Is Only Right Admirable When To All Its Beauty And Speed A Subserviency To The Will, Like That Of Walking, Is Added.

I Learn Immediately From Any Speaker How Much He Has Already Lived, Through The Poverty Or The Splendor Of His Speech. Life Lies Behind Us As The Quarry From Whence We Get Tiles And Copestones For The Masonry Of Today. This Is The Way To Learn Grammar. Colleges And Books Only Copy The Language Which The Field And The Work-yard Made.

All Writing Comes By The Grace Of God.

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

The Learned And The Studious Of Thought Have No Monopoly Of Wisdom. Their Violence Of Direction In Some Degree Disqualifies Them To Think Truly.

Old & New Put Their Stamp To Everything In Nature. The Snowflake That Is Now Falling Is Marked By Both. The Present Moment Gives The Motion & The Color Of The Flake: Antiquity, Its Form & Properties. All Things Wear A Luster Which Is The Gift Of The Present & A Tarnish Of Time.

Every Natural Fact Is A Symbol Of Some Spiritual Fact. Every Appearance In Nature Corresponds To Some State Of The Mind, And That State Of The Mind Can Only Be Described By Presenting That Natural Appearance As Its Picture.

A Philosopher Must Be More Than A Philosopher.

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.

I See Not Any Road Of Perfect Peace Which A Man Can Walk But After The Counsel Of His Own Bosom.

Though We Travel The World Over To Find The Beautiful, We Must Carry It With Us Or We Find It Not.

Many Photographers Think They Are Photographing Nature When They Are Only Caricaturing Her.

Every Chair Should Be A Throne And Hold A King.

Every Action Has An Ancestor Of A Thought.

I Admire Answers To Which No Answers Can Be Made.

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

People Do Not Seem To Realize That Their Opinion Of The World Is Also A Confession Of Character.

I Consider Theology To Be The Rhetoric Of Morals.

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

There Are Days When The Great Are Near Us, When There Is No Frown On Their Brow, No Condescension Even; When They Take Us By The Hand, And We Share Their Thought.

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

The Compensations Of Calamity Are Made Apparent To The Understanding Also, After Long Intervals Of Time. A Fever, A Mutilation, A Cruel Disappointment, A Loss Of Wealth, A Loss Of Friends, Seems At The Moment Unpaid Loss, And Unpayable. But The Sure Years Reveal The Deep Remedial Force That Underlies All Facts.

People Who Wash Much Have A High Mind About It, And Talk Down To Those Who Wash Little.

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.

All Diseases Run Into One, Old Age.

Funny Relationship

To Go Into Solitude, A Man Needs To Retire As Much From His Chamber As From Society. I Am Not Solitary Whilst I Read And Write, Though Nobody Is With Me. But If A Man Would Be Alone, Let Him Look At The Stars.

Can Anything Be So Elegant As To Have Few Wants, And To Serve Them One's Self?

The Aid We Can Give Each Other Is Only Incidental, Lateral, And Sympathetic.

Painting Was Called Silent Poetry And Poetry Speaking Painting.

As The Farmer Casts Into The Ground The Finest Ears Of His Grain, The Time Will Come When We Too Shall Hold Nothing Back, But Shall Eagerly Convert More Than We Now Possess Into Means And Powers, When We Shall Be Willing To Sow The Sun And The Moon For Seeds.

People Destined To Meet Will Do So, Apparently By Chance, At Precisely The Right Moment.

Genius Has No Taste For Weaving Sand.

The Religions Of The World Are The Ejaculations Of A Few Imaginative Men.

Every Really Able Man, In Whatever Direction He Works - A Man Of Large Affairs, An Inventor, A Statesman, An Orator, A Poet, A Painter - If You Talk Sincerely With Him, Considers His Work, However Much Admired, As Far Short Of What It Should Be. What Is This Better, This Flying Ideal, But The Perpetual Promise Of His Creator?

There Is A Certain Satisfaction In Coming Down To The Lowest Ground Of Politics, For We Get Rid Of Cant And Hypocrisy.

The Bitterest Tragic Element In Life To Be Derived From An Intellectual Source Is The Belief In A Brute Fate Or Destiny.

If We Will Not Interfere With Our Thought, But Will Act Entirely, Or See How The Thing Stands In God, We Know The Particular Thing, And Every Thing, And Every Man.

In A Tavern Everybody Puts On Airs Except The Landlord.

Human Condition

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

The Magnanimous Know Very Well That They Who Give Time, Or Money, Or Shelter, To The Stranger--so It Be Done For Love, And Not Forostentation--do, As It Were, Put God Under Obligation To Them, So Perfect Are The Compensations Of The Universe.

The Law Of Nature Is Alternation For Evermore. Each Electrical State Superinduces The Opposite.

My Book Should Smell Of Pines And Resound With The Hum Of Insects.

The Power Which Resides In Him Is New In Nature, And None But He Knows What That Is Which He Can Do, Nor Does He Know Until He Has Tried.

No Picture Of Life Can Have Any Veracity That Does Not Admit The Odious Facts. A Man's Power Is Hooped In By A Necessity, Which, By Many Experiments, He Touches On Every Side, Until He Learns Its Arc.

There Is Properly No History, Only Biography.

Divine Persons Are Character Born, Or, To Borrow A Phrase From Napoleon, They Are Victory Organized.

Is The Parent Better Than The Child Into Whom He Has Cast His Ripened Being? Whence, Then, This Worship Of The Past?

I Look On That Man As Happy, Who, When There Is Question Of Success, Looks Into His Work For A Reply.

Stand Guard At The Portal Of Your Mind.

All Mankind Love A Lover.

There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right.

Lose Yourself In Nature And Find Peace

Ennui Shortens Life, And Bereaves The Day Of Its Light.

Beauty Is The Moment Of Transition, As If The Form Were Just Ready To Flow Into Other Forms.

Our Desires Presage The Capacities Within Us; They Are Harbingers Of What We Shall Be Able To Accomplish. What We Can Do And Want To Do Is Projected In Our Imagination, Quite Outside Ourselves, And Into The Future. We Are Attracted To What Is Already Ours In Secret. Thus Passionate Anticipation Transforms What Is Indeed Possible Into Dreamt-for Reality.

To A Physician, Each Man, Each Woman, Is An Amplification Of One Organ.

We Postpone Our Literary Work Until We Have More Ripeness And Skill To Write, And We One Day Discover That Our Literary Talent Wasa Youthful Effervescence Which We Have Now Lost.

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

The Noblest Ministry Of Nature Is To Stand As The Apparition Of God.

Fashion Which Affects To Be Honor, Is Often, In All Men's Experience, Only A Ballroom-code.

We Have More Than We Use.

Use It Or Lose It

There Are Men Whose Language Is Strong And Defying Enough, Yet Their Eyes And Their Actions Ask Leave Of Other Men To Live.

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.

Steam Was Till The Other Day The Devil Which We Dreaded. Every Pot Made By Any Human Potter Or Brazier Had A Hole In Its Cover, To Let Off The Enemy, Lest He Should Lift Pot And Roof And Carry The House Away.

There Are Two Laws Discretenot Reconciled,law For Man, And Law For Thing.

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

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.

The Civility Of No Race Can Be Perfect Whilst Another Race Is Degraded.

There Is No Beautifier Of Complexion, Or Form, Or Behavior, Like The Wish To Scatter Joy And Not Pain Around Us. 'tis Good To Give A Stranger A Meal, Or A Night's Lodging. 'tis Better To Be Hospitable To His Good Meaning And Thought, And Give Courage To A Companion. We Must Be As Courteous To A Man As We Are To A Picture, Which We Are Willing To Give The Advantage Of A Good Light.

The Reason Of Idleness And Of Crime Is The Deferring Of Our Hopes.

Who Makes And Keeps The Jew Or The Negro Base, Who But You, Who Exclude Them From The Rights Which Others Enjoy?

A Man Is A Hero, Not Because He Is Braver Than Anyone Else, But Because He Is Brave For 10 Minutes Longer.

I Know Of No Such Unquestionable Badge And Ensign Of A Sovereign Mind As That Of Tenacity Of Purpose.

The Unstable Estimates Of Men Crowd To Him Whose Mind Is Filled With A Truth, As The Heaped Waves Of The Atlantic Follow The Moon.

Something Is Wanting To Science Until It Has Been Humanised.

Proportion Is Almost Impossible To Human Beings. There Is No One Who Does Not Exaggerate.

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

Native American

The Course Of Everything Goes To Teach Us Faith.

All The Elements, Whose Aid Man Calls In, Will Sometimes Become Big Masters.

Though Love Repine, And Reason Chafe, There Came A Voice Without Reply,- "'tis Man's Perdition To Be Safe, When For The Truth He Ought To Die."

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose.

There Is No Privacy That Cannot Be Penetrated. No Secret Can Be Kept In The Civilized World. Society Is A Masked Ball Where Everyone Hides His Real Character, Then Reveals It By Hiding

Art Is Not To Be Found By Touring To Egypt, China, Or Peru; If You Cannot Find It At Your Own Door, You Will Never Find It.

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

The Stars Awaken A Certain Reverence, Because Though Always Present, They Are Inaccessible; But All Natural Objects Make A Kindred Impression, When The Mind Is Open To Their Influence. Nature Never Wears A Mean Appearance.

It Depends Little On The Object, Much On The Mood, In Art.

Do What We Can, Summer Will Have Its Flies.

To Make Knowledge Valuable, You Must Have The Cheerfulness Of Wisdom.

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

No Society Can Ever Be So Large As One Man.

Yet These Uneasy Pleasures And Fine Pains Are For Curiosity, And Not For Life.

Beauty Is An Outward Gift, Which Is Seldom Despised, Except By Those To Whom It Has Been Refused.

You Cannot Kindle A Fire In Any Other Heart Until It Is Burning In Your Own.

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.

It Is The Secret Of The World That All Things Subsist And Do Not Die, But Only Retire A Little From Sight And Afterward Return Again.

Within, I Do Not Find Wrinkles And Used Heart, But Unspent Youth.

Wisdom Has Its Root In Goodness, Not Goodness Its Root In Wisdom.

Good Breeding, A Union Of Kindness And Independence.

Picture And Sculpture Are The Celebrations And Festivities Of Form.

Every Man Is Actually Weak, And Apparently Strong. To Himself, He Seems Weak; To Others, Formidable.

The First Point Of Courtesy Must Always Be Truth.

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

A Man Often Pays Dear For A Small Frugality.

The Whole Value Of The Dime Is In Knowing What To Do With It.

I Once Heard A Preacher Who Sorely Tempted Me To Go To Church No More.

The Highest Virtue Is Always Against The Law.

We Are Amphibious Creatures, Weaponed For Two Elements, Having Two Sets Of Faculties, The Particular And The Catholic.

When A Man Thinks Happily, He Finds No Foot-track In The Field He Traverses. All Spontaneous Thought Is Irrespective Of All Else.

Everything Has Its Price - And If That Price Is Not Paid, Not That Thing But Something Else Is Obtained... It Is Impossible To Get Anything Without This Price.

The Brevity Of Human Life Gives A Melancholy To The Profession Of The Architect.

The Trail Of The Serpent Reaches Into All The Lucrative Professions And Practices Of Man. Each Has Its Own Wrongs. Each Finds A Tender And Very Intelligent Conscience A Disqualification For Success. Each Requires Of The Practitioner A Certain Shutting Of The Eyes, A Certain Dapperness And Compliance, An Acceptance Of Customs, A Sequestration From The Sentiments Of Generosity And Love, A Compromise Of Private Opinion And Lofty Integrity.

Earth Proudly Wears The Parthenon As The Best Gem Upon Her Zone.

An English Family Consists Of A Few Persons, Who, From Youth To Age, Are Found Revolving Within A Few Feet Of Each Other, As If Tied By Some Invisible Ligature, Tense As That Cartilage Which We Have Seen Attaching The Two Siamese.

There Is An Optical Illusion About Every Person We Meet.

Optical Illusions

Transcendentalism

Before A Leaf-bud Has Burst, Its Whole Life Acts; In The Full-blown Flower There Is No More; In The Leafless Root There Is No Less.

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.

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

The World Is Young: The Former Great Men Call To Us Affectionately. We Too Must Write Bibles, To Unite Again The Heavens And The Earthly World.

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.

But A Compassion For That Which Is Not And Cannot Be Useful And Lovely, Is Degrading And Futile.

The Virtue Of Art Lies In Detachment, In Sequestering One Object From The Embarrassing Variety. Until One Thing Comes Out From Theconnection Of Things, There Can Be Enjoyment, Contemplation, But No Thought.

How Often We Must Remember The Art Of The Surgeon, Which, In Replacing The Broken Bone, Contents Itself With Releasing The Parts From False Position; They Fly Into Place By The Action Of The Muscles. On This Art Of Nature All Our Arts Rely.

The Powers Of The Soul Are Commensurate With Its Needs.

But What Help From These Fineries Or Pedantries? What Help From Thought? Life Is Not Dialectics. We, I Think, In These Times, Have Had Lessons Enough Of The Futility Of Criticism.

Conservatism Stands On Man's Confessed Limitations; Reform On His Indisputable Infinitude; Conservatism On Circumstance; Liberalism On Power; One Goes To Make An Adroit Member Of The Social Frame; The Other To Postpone All Things To The Man Himself.

The Borrowing Is Often Honest Enough, And Comes Of Magnanimity And Stoutness. A Great Man Quotes Bravely And Will Not Draw On His Invention When His Memory Serves Him With A Word As Good.

If You Would Lift Me Up, You've Got To Be On Higher Ground.

Every Sunset Brings The Promise Of A New Dawn

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.

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