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Men Do What Is Called A Good Action, As Some Piece Of Courage Or Charity, Much As They Would Pay A Fine In Expiation Of Daily Non-appearance On Parade. Their Works Are Done As An Apology Or Extenuation Of Their Living In The World. I Do Not Wish To Expiate, But To Live. My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Men Do What Is

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Men Do What Is Called A Good Action, As Some Piece Of Courage Or Charity, Much As They Would Pay A Fine In Expiation Of Daily Non-appearance On Parade. Their Works Are Done As An Apology Or Extenuation Of Their Living In The World. I Do Not Wish To Expiate, But To Live. My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life.

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The Results Of Life Are Uncalculated And Uncalculable. The Years Teach Much Which The Days Never Know. The Persons Who Compose Our Company, Converse, And Come And Go, And Design And Execute Many Things, And Somewhat Comes Of It All, But An Unlooked For Result. The Individual Is Always Mistaken. He Designed Many Things, And Drew In Other Persons As Coadjutors, Quarrelled With Some Or All, Blundered Much, And Something Is Done; All Are A Little Advanced, But The Individual Is Always Mistaken. It Turns Out Somewhat New, And Very Unlike What He Promised Himself.

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

Eloquence Is The Power To Translate A Truth Into Language Perfectly Intelligible To The Person To Whom You Speak.

Few And Mean As My Gifts May Be, I Actually Am, And Do Not Need For My Own Assurance Or The Assurance Of My Fellows Any Secondary Testimony.

Money, Which Represents The Prose Of Life, And Which Is Hardly Spoken Of In Parlors Without An Apology, Is, In Its Effects And Laws, As Beautiful As Roses.

For The Time Of Towns Is Tolled From The World By Funereal Chimes, But In Nature The Universal Hours Are Counted By Succeeding Tribes Of Animals And Plants, And By Growth Of Joy On Joy.

Continual Failure Is A Road To Success - If You Have The Strength To Go On.

Road To Success

The Intellectual Life May Be Kept Clean And Healthful, If Man Will Live The Life Of Nature, And Not Import Into His Mind Difficulties Which Are None Of His.

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

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

Work And Acquire, And Thou Hast Chained The Wheel Of Chance.

Take Egotism Out And You Would Castrate The Benefactors.

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 True Poem Is The Poet's Mind.

If A Man Sits Down To Think, He Is Immediately Asked If He Has A Headache.

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

It Is The Last Lesson Of Modern Science, That The Highest Simplicity Of Structure Is Produced, Not By Few Elements, But By The Highest Complexity.

When It Comes To Divide An Estate, The Politest Men Quarrel.

There Are Twenty Ways Of Going To A Point, And One Is The Shortest; But Set Out At Once On One. A Man Who Has That Presence Of Mind Which Can Bring To Him On The Instant All He Knows, Is Worth For Action A Dozen Men Who Know As Much, But Can Only Bring It To Light Slowly.

Presence Of Mind

Every Man Finds A Sanction For His Simplest Claims And Deeds, In Decisions Of His Own Mind, Which He Calls Truth And Holiness.

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

Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

Men Cease To Interest Us When We Find Their Limitations

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

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.

Do Not Craze Yourself With Thinking, But Go About Your Business Anywhere.

The Greatest Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself.

In Order For One To Learn The Important Lessons Of Life, One Must First Overcome A Fear Each Day.

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

I Like Man, But Not Men.

A Work Of Art Is An Abstract Or Epitome Of The World. It Is The Result Or Expression Of Nature, In Miniature. For, Although The Works Of Nature Are Innumerable And All Different, The Result Or The Expression Of Them All Is Similar And Single.

The Death Of A Dear Friend, Wife, Brother, Lover, Which Seemed Nothing But Privation, Somewhat Later Assumes The Aspect Of A Guide Or Genius; For It Commonly Operates Revolutions In Our Way Of Life, Terminates An Epoch Of Infancy Or Of Youth Which Was Waiting To Be Closed, Breaks Up A Wonted Occupation, Or A Household, Or Style Of Living, And Allows The Formation Of New Ones More Friendly To The Growth Of Character.

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.

Show Me A Man Who Has Acted, And Who Has Not Been The Victim And Slave Of His Action. What They Have Done Commits And Enforces Them To Do The Same Again. The First Act, Which Was To Be An Experiment, Becomes A Sacrament.

Let Every Man Shovel Out His Own Snow And The Whole City Will Be Passable.

It Is One Light Which Beams Out Of A Thousand Stars. It Is One Soul Which Animates All Men.

To Be Yourself In A World That Is Constantly Trying To Make You Something Else Is The Greatest Accomplishment.

If The Black Man Is Feeble And Not Important To The Existing Races, Not On A Parity With The Best Race, The Black Man Must Serve,and Be Exterminated. But If The Black Man Carries In His Bosom An Indispensable Element Of A New And Coming Civilization; For The Sake Of That Element, No Wrong Nor Strength Nor Circumstance Can Hurt Him: He Will Survive And Play His Part. So Now, The Arrival In The World Of Such Men As Toussaint, And The Haytian Heroes, Or Of The Leaders Of Their Race In Barbadoes And Jamaica, Outweighs In Good Omen All The English And American Humanity.

Doing Well Is The Result Of Doing Good. That's What Capitalism Is All About.

The Civility Of No Race Can Be Perfect Whilst Another Race Is Degraded. It Is A Doctrine Alike Of The Oldest And Of The Newest Philosophy, That Man Is One, And That You Cannot Injure Any Member, Without A Sympathetic Injury To All The Members

He In Whom The Love Of Repose Predominates Will Accept The First Creed, The First Philosophy, The First Political Party He Meets — Most Likely His Father's. He Gets Rest, Commodity, And Reputation; But He Shuts The Door Of Truth.

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

Men Seek To Be Great; They Would Have Offices, Wealth, Power, And Fame. They Think That To Be Great Is To Possess One Side Of Nature,--the Sweet, Without The Other Side,--the Bitter.

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

A Man In Pursuit Of Greatness Feels No Little Wants.

Sleep Lingers All Our Lifetime About Our Eyes, As Night Hovers All Day In The Boughs Of The Fir-tree.

I Do Not Hesitate To Read. All Good Books In Translations. What Is Really Best In Any Book Is Translatable-any Real Insight Or Broad Human Sentiment.

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

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

Welcome Evermore To Gods And Men Is The Self-helping Man.

Words Are Also Actions, And Actions Are A Kind Of Words.

The Secret Of Poetry Is Never Explained,— Is Always New. We Have Not Got Farther Than Mere Wonder At The Delicacy Of The Touch, And The Eternity It Inherits. In Every House A Child That In Mere Play Utters Oracles, And Knows Not That They Are Such. 't Is As Easy As Breath. 't Is Like This Gravity, Which Holds The Universe Together, And None Knows What It Is.

There Are Not In The World At Any One Time More Than A Dozen Persons Who Read And Understand Plato:-never Enough To Pay For An Edition Of His Works; Yet To Every Generation These Come Duly Down, For The Sake Of Those Few Persons, As If God Brought Them Written In His Hand.

Each Man, If He Attempts To Join Himself To Others, Is On All Sides Cramped And Diminished Of His Proportion; And The Stricter Theunion, The Smaller And The More Pitiful He Is. But Leave Him Alone, To Recognize In Every Hour And Place The Secret Soul, He Will Go Up And Down Doing The Works Of A True Member, And, To The Astonishment Of All, The Work Will Be Done With Concert, Though No Man Spoke.

Noblesse Oblige; Or, Superior Advantages Bind You To Larger Generosity.

The Pest Of Society Are The Egotist, They Are Dull And Bright, Sacred And Profane, Course And Fine. It Is A Disease That Like The Flu Falls On All Constitutions.

You Never Know How You Look Through Other People's Eyes.

The Only Money Of God Is God. He Pays Never With Any Thing Less, Or Any Thing Else.

Is It Not Better To Intimate Our Astonishment As We Pass Through This World If It Be Only For A Moment Ere We Are Swallowed Up In The Yeast Of The Abyss? I Will Lift Up My Hands And Say Kosmos.

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

As Long As Our Civilization Is Essentially One Of Property, Of Fences, Of Exclusiveness, It Will Be Mocked By Delusions.

How Can He [today's Writer] Be Honored, When He Does Not Honor Himself; When He Loses Himself In The Crowd; When He Is No Longer The Lawgiver, But The Sycophant, Ducking To The Giddy Opinion Of A Reckless Public.

Nature Is Methodical, And Doeth Her Work Well. Time Is Never To Be Hurried.

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.

A Man Complained That On His Way Home To Dinner He Had Every Day To Pass Through That Long Field Of His Neighbor's. I Advised Him To Buy It, And It Would Never Seem Long Again.

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.

Sport Is The Bloom And Glow Of A Perfect Health. The Great Will Not Condescend To Take Anything Seriously; All Must Be As Gay As The Song Of A Canary, Though It Were The Building Of Cities, Or The Eradication Of Old And Foolish Churches And Nations, Which Have Cumbered The Earth Long Thousands Of Years.

The Prayer Of The Farmer Kneeling In His Field To Weed It, The Prayer Of The Rower Kneeling With The Stroke Of His Oar, Are True Prayers Heard Throughout Nature.

Character Is That Which Can Do Without Success.

Tobacco And Opium Have Broad Backs, And Will Cheerfully Carry The Load Of Armies, If You Choose To Make Them Pay High For Such Joy As They Give And Such Harm As They Do.

What I Must Do Is All That Concerns Me, Not What People Think. This Rule,equally Arduous In Actual And Intellectual Life, May Serve For The Whole Distinction Between Greatness And Meanness. It Is The Harder, Because You Will Always Find Those Who Think They Know What Is Your Duty Better Than You Know It. It Is Easy In The World To Live After The World's Opinion; It Is Easy In Solitude To Live After Our Own; But The Great Man Is He Who In The Midst Of The Crowd Keeps With Perfect Sweetness The Independence Of Solitude.

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

The Eye Obeys Exactly The Action Of The Mind.

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

Love And You Shall Be Loved. All Love Is Mathematically Just, As Much As Two Sides Of An Algebraic Equation.

Yet America Is A Poem In Our Eyes; Its Ample Geography Dazzles The Imagination, And It Will Not Wait Long For Metres.

It Is The Ignorant And Childish Part Of Mankind That Is The Fighting Part. Idle And Vacant Minds Want Excitement

The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most. The Power Which The Sea Requires In The Sailor Makes A Man Of Him Very Fast, And The Change Of Shores And Population Clears His Head Of Much Nonsense Of His Wigwam.

An Individual Is An Encloser. Time And Space, Liberty And Necessity, Truth And Thought, Are Left At Large No Longer.

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

A Fact Is The End Or Last Issue Of Spirit. The Visible Creation Is The Terminus Or The Circumference Of The Invisible World.

I Like The Silent Church Before The Service Begins, Better Than Any Preaching.

It Is The Privilege Of Any Human Work Which Is Well Done To Invest The Doer With A Certain Haughtiness. He Can Well Afford Not To Conciliate, Whose Faithful Work Will Answer For Him.

Shakspeare Is The Only Biographer Of Shakspeare; And Even He Can Tell Nothing, Except To The Shakspeare In Us; That Is, To Our Most Apprehensive And Sympathetic Hour.

And Striving To Be Man, The Worm Mounts Through All The Spires Of Form.

If Man Has Good Corn, Or Wood, Or Boards, Or Pigs To Sell, Or Can Make Better Chairs Or Knives, Crucibles, Or Church Organs, Than Anybody Else, You Will Find A Broad, Hard-beaten Road To His House, Though It Be In The Woods.

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

A Strenuous Soul Hates Cheap Success. It Is The Ardor Of The Assailant That Makes The Vigor Of The Defendant.

The Vanishing, Volatile Froth Of The Present Which Any Shadow Will Alter, Any Thought Blow Away, Any Event Annihilate, Is Every Moment Converted Into The Adamantine.

We Change Whether We Like It Or Not.

So Shall We Come To Look At The World With New Eyes.

This Time, Like All Times, Is A Very Good One, If We But Know What To Do With It.

Deal In Our Privacy With The Last Honesty And Truth.

The Finest Poetry Was First Experience.

What New Thoughts Are Suggested By Seeing A Face Of Country Quite Familiar, In The Rapid Movement Of The Rail-road Car!

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

Great Geniuses Have The Shortest Biographies. Their Cousins Can Tell You Nothing About Them. They Lived In Their Writings, And Sotheir House And Street Life Was Trivial And Commonplace. If You Would Know Their Tastes And Complexions, The Most Admiring Of Their Readers Most Resembles Them.

The Lover Of Letters Loves Power Too.

Women See Through Claude Lorraines.

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.

The State Is Our Neighbors; Our Neighbors Are The State.

When Some External Event Raises Your Spirits And You Think Good Days Are Preparing For You, Do Not Believe It. It Can Never Be So. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

Nature Is Too Thin A Screen; The Glory Of The Omnipresent God Bursts Through Everywhere

The Last Change In Our Point Of View Gives The Whole World A Pictorial Air.

Finish Each Day And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could. Some Blunders And Absurdities No Doubt Crept In; Forget Them As Soon As You Can. Tomorrow Is A New Day; Begin It Well And Serenely And With Too High A Spirit To Be Encumbered With Your Old Nonsense.

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

A Man Must Be Clothed With Society, Or We Shall Feel A Certain Bareness And Poverty, As Of A Displaced And Unfurnished Member. He Is To Be Dressed In Arts And Institutions, As Well As In Body Garments. Now And Then A Man Exquisitely Made Can Live Alone, And Must; But Coop Up Most Men And You Undo Them.

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

Nature Is Good, But Intellect Is Better, As The Law-giver Is Before The Law-receiver.

The Public Values The Invention More Than The Inventor Does. The Inventor Knows There Is Much More And Better Where This Came From.

Everything In Creation Has Its Appointed Painter Or Poet And Remains In Bondage Like The Princess In The Fairy Tale 'til Its Appropriate Liberator Comes To Set It Free.

Many Might Go To Heaven With Half The Labor They Go To Hell.

Explore, And Explore, And Explore. Be Neither Chided Nor Flattered Out Of Your Position Of Perpetual Inquiry. Neither Dogmatise Yourself, Nor Accept Another's Dogmatism. Why Should You Renounce Your Right To Traverse The Star-lit Deserts Of Truth, For The Premature Comforts Of An Acre, House, And Barn? Truth Also Has Its Roof, And Bed, And Board. Make Yourself Necessary To The World, And Mankind Will Give You Bread, And If Not Store Of It, Yet Such As Shall Not Take Away Your Property In All Men's Possessions, In All Men's Affections, In Art, In Nature, And In Hope.

The Only True Gifts Are A Portion Of Yourself.

I Think That The Heroism Which At This Day Would Make On Us The Impression Of Epaminondas And Phocion Must Be That Of A Domestic Conqueror. He Who Shall Bravely And Gracefully Subdue This Gorgon Of Convention And Fashion, And Show Men How To Lead A Clean, Handsome And Heroic Life Amid The Beggarly Elements Of Our Cities And Villages; Whoso Shall Teach Me How To Eat My Meat And Take My Repose And Deal With Men, Without Any Shame Following, Will Restore The Life Of Man To Splendor, And Make His Own Name Dear To All History.

Conformity Is The Ape Of Harmony.

In America And Europe, The Nomadism Is Of Trade And Curiosity.

The Peace Of The Man Who Has Forsworn The Use Of The Bullet Seems To Me Not Quite Peace, But A Canting Impotence.

Who Heeds The Waste Abyss Of Possibility? The Ocean Is Everywhere The Same, But It Has No Character Until Seen With The Shore Or The Ship.

You Have A Place To Live In This World Which No Other Man Can Occupy; Hence No Competitors.

Napoleon Said Of Massena, That He Was Not Himself Until The Battle Began To Go Against Him; Then, When The Dead Began To Fall In Ranks Around Him, Awoke His Powers Of Combination, And He Put On Terror And Victory As A Robe.

But It Is A Cold, Lifeless Business When You Go To The Shops To Buy Something, Which Does Not Represent Your Life And Talent, But A Goldsmith's.

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.

Perception Is A Mirror Not A Fact. And What I Look On Is My State Of Mind, Reflected Outward.

In This Distribution Of Functions, The Scholar Is The Delegated Intellect. In The Right State, He Is, Man Thinking. In The Degenerate State, When The Victim Of Society, He Tends To Become A Mere Thinker, Or, Still Worse, The Parrot Of Other Men's Thinking.

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy.

Machinery Is Aggressive. The Weaver Becomes A Web, The Machinist A Machine. If You Do Not Use The Tools, They Use You. All Tools Are In One Sense Edge-tools, And Dangerous.

The Preamble Of Thought, The Transition Through Which It Passes From The Unconscious To The Conscious, Is Action. Only So Much Do I Know, As I Have Lived. Instantly We Know Whose Words Are Loaded With Life, And Whose Not.

A Sage Is The Instructor Of A Hundred Ages.

I Should As Soon Think Of Swimming Across Charles River, When I Wish To Go To Boston, As Of Reading All My Books In Originals, When I Have Them Rendered For Me In My Mother Tongue.

But When You Have Chosen Your Part, Abide By It, And Do Not Weakly Try To Reconcile Yourself With The World.

I Like To Be Beholden To The Great Metropolitan English Speech, The Sea Which Receives Tributaries From Every Region Under Heaven.

Truth Gathers Itself Spotless And Unhurt After All Our Surrenders And Concealments And Partisanship; Never Hurt By The Treachery Or Ruin Of Its Best Defenders, Whether Luther, Or William Penn, Or St. Paul.

We Have Feudal Governments In A Commercial Age. It Would Be But An Easy Extension Of Our Commercial System, To Pay A Private Emperor A Fee For Services, As We Pay An Architect, An Engineer, Or A Lawyer. If Any Man Has Talent For Righting Wrong, For Administering Difficult Affairs, For Counselling Poor Farmers How To Turn Their Estates To Good Husbandry, For Combining A Hundred Private Enterprises To A General Benefit, Let Him In The County- Town, Or In Court-street, Put Up His Sign-board, Mr. Smith, Governor, Mr. Johnson, Working King.

I Could Better Eat With One Who Did Not Respect The Truth Or The Laws, Than With A Sloven And Unpresentable Person. Moral Qualities Rule The World, But At Shorter Distances, The Senses Are Despotic.

Every Spirit Builds Itself A House; And Beyond Its House, A World; And Beyond Its World A Heaven. Know Then, That The World Exists For You: Build, Therefore, Your Own World.

All That Adam Had, All That Caesar Could, You Have And Can Do.... Build, Therefore, Your Own World.

Fear Always Springs From Ignorance.

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

Be Sure Then To Read No Mean Books. Shun The Spawn Of The Press On The Gossip Of The Hour. Do Not Read What You Shall Learn, Without Asking, In The Street And The Train.

All Successful Men Have Agreed In One Thing -- They Were Causationists. They Believed That Things Went Not By Luck, But By Law; That There Was Not A Weak Or A Cracked Link In The Chain That Joins The First And Last Of Things.

Sooner Or Later That Which Is Now Life Shall Be Poetry, And Every Fair And Manly Trait Shall Add A Richer Strain To The Song.

A Man Of Thought Must Feel The Thought That Is Parent Of The Universe: That The Masses Of Nature Do Undulate And Flow.

Meek Young Men Grow Up In Libraries, Believing It Their Duty To Accept The Views Which Cicero, Which Locke, Which Bacon, Have Given, Forgetful That Cicero, Locke, And Bacon Were Only Young Men In Libraries, When They Wrote These Books.

When A Man Meets His Make, Society Begins.

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.

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.

Empirical Science Is Apt To Cloud The Sight, And, By The Very Knowledge Of Functions And Processes, To Bereave The Student Of Themanly Contemplation Of The Whole.

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

Out From The Heart Of Nature Rolled The Burdens Of The Bible Old.

Nor Sequent Centuries Could Hitorbit And Sum Of Shakespeare's Wit.

The Present Is An Edifice Which God Cannot Rebuild.

An Individual Has A Healthy Personality To The Exact Degree To Which They Have The Propensity To Look For The Good In Every Situation.

Freedom Is The Essence Of This Faith. It Has For Its Object Simply To Make Men Good And Wise. Its Institutions Then Should Be As Flexible As The Wants Of Men. That Form Out Of Which The Life And Suitableness Have Departed Should Be As Worthless In Its Eyes As The Dead Leaves That Are Falling Around Us.

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

If It Costs Ten Years, And Ten To Recover The General Prosperity, The Destruction Of The South Is Worth So Much.

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

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.

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise. Our First Journeys Discover To Us The Indifference Of Places.

Style Is Only The Frame To Hold Your Thoughts. It Is Like The Sash Of A Window; If Heavy, It Will Obscure The Light.

The Cheapness Of Man Is Every Day's Tragedy. It Is As Real A Loss That Others Should Be Low, As That We Should Be Low; For We Musthave A Society.

Work And Thou Canst Escape The Reward; Whether The Work Be Fine Or Course, Planting Corn Or Writing Epics, So Only It Be Honest Work, Done To Thine Own Approbation, It Shall Earn A Reward To The Senses As Well As To The Thought.

The Merit Of Those Who Fill A Space In The World's History, Who Are Borne Forward, As It Were, By The Weight Of Thousands Whom They Lead, Shed A Perfume Less Sweet Than Do The Sacrifices Of Private Virtue.

We Swim, Day By Day, On A River Of Delusions, And Are Effectually Amused With Houses And Towns In The Air, Of Which The Men Aboutus Are Dupes. But Life Is A Sincerity.

The Scholar May Lose Himself In Schools, In Words, And Become A Pedant; But When He Comprehends His Duties, He Above All Men Is Arealist, And Converses With Things.

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.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage. Whatever Course You Decide Upon, There Is Always Someone To Tell You That You Are Wrong.

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.

Success In Your Work, The Finding A Better Method, The Better Understanding That Insures The Better Performing Is Hat And Coat, Is Food And Wine, Is Fire And Horse And Health And Holiday. At Least, I Find That Any Success In My Work Has The Effect On My Spirits Of All These.

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

We Imperatively Require A Perception Of And A Homage To Beauty In Our Companions. Other Virtues Are In Request In The Field And Workyard, But A Certain Degree Of Taste Is Not To Be Spared In Those We Sit With.

Fashion Understands Itself; Good-breeding And Personal Superiority Of Whatever Country Readily Fraternize With Those Of Every Other. The Chiefs Of Savage Tribes Have Distinguished Themselves In London And Paris, By The Purity Of Their Tournure.

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.

Politics Is A Deleterious Profession, Like Some Poisonous Handicrafts.

"in The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith. There I Feel That Nothing Can Befall Me In Life~~no Disgrace, No Calamity (leaving Me My Eyes), Which Nature Cannot Repair."

An Artist Spends Himself Like The Crayon In His Hand, Till He Is All Gone.

[w]e Pity Our Fathers For Dying Before Steam And Galvanism, Sulphuric Ether And Ocean Telegraphs, Photograph And Spectrograph Arrived, As Cheated Out Of Their Human Estate.

Sunshine Cannot Bleach The Snow, Nor Time Unmake What Poets Know

An Imaginative Book Renders Us Much More Service At First, By Stimulating Us Through Its Tropes, Than Afterward, When We Arrive Atthe Precise Sense Of The Author. I Think Nothing Is Of Any Value In Books, Excepting The Transcendental And Extraordinary.

Only The Great Generalizations Survive. The Sharp Words Of The Declaration Of Independence, Lampooned Then And Since As 'glittering Generalities,' Have Turned Out Blazing Ubiquities That Will Burn Forever And Ever.

Nature Encourages No Looseness; Pardons No Errors.

There Will Always Be In Society Certain Persons Who Are Mercuries Of Its Approbation, And Whose Glance Will At Any Time Determinefor The Curious Their Standing In The World. These Are The Chamberlains Of The Lesser Gods. Accept Their Coldness As An Omen Of Grace With The Loftier Deities, And Allow Them All Their Privilege.

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

The Thief Steals From Himself. The Swindler Swindles Himself. For The Real Price Is Knowledge And Virtue, Whereof Wealth And Credit Are Signs. These Signs, Like Paper Money, May Be Counterfeited Or Stolen, But That Which They Represent, Namely, Knowledge And Virtue, Cannot Be Counterfeited Or Stolen.

Hither Rolls The Storm Of Heat; I Feel Its Finer Billows Beat Like A Sea Which Me Infolds; Heat With Viewless Fingers Moulds, Swells, And Mellows, And Matures, Paints, And Flavors, And Allures, Bird And Brier Inly Warms, Still Enriches And Transforms, Gives The Reed And Lily Length, Adds To Oak And Oxen Strength, Transforming What It Doth Infold, Life Out Of Death, New Out Of Old.

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

Man Is Priest, And Scholar, And Statesman, And Producer, And Soldier. In The Divided Or Social State These Functions Are Parcelled Out To Individuals, Each Of Whom Aims To Do His Stint Of The Joint Work, Whilst Each Other Performs His.

Passion, Though A Bad Regulator, Is A Powerful Spring.

Some Men, At The Approach Of A Dispute, Neigh Like Horses.

Free Should Be The Scholar - Free And Brave.

Cultivate The Habit Of Being Grateful... And ...give Thanks Continuously.

Speech Is Power: Speech Is To Persuade, To Convert, To Compel. It Is To Bring Another Out Of His Bad Sense Into Your Good Sense.

Power Of Speech

The God Of Victory Is Said To Be One-handed, But Peace Gives Victory To Both Sides.

We Know More From Nature Than We Can At Will Communicate.

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

I Believe In Eternity. I Can Find Greece, Palestine, Italy, Spain, And The Islands, - The Genius And Creative Principle Of Each And Of All Eras, In My Own Mind.

It Is Never Too Late To Do Right.

Men's Actions Are Too Strong For Them. Show Me A Man Who Has Acted, And Who Has Not Been The Victim And Slave Of His Action.

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

Manners Are Very Communicable: Men Catch Them From Each Other.

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