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...most Men Have Bound Their Eyes With One Or Another Handkerchief, And Attached Themselves To Some One Of These Communities Of Opinion. This Conformity Makes Them Not False In A Few Particulars, Authors Of A Few Lies, But False In All Particulars. Their Every Truth Is Not Quite True. Their Two Is Not The Real Two, Their Four Not The Real Four; So That Every Word They Say Chagrins Us, And We Know Not Where To Begin To Set Them Right.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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...most Men Have Bound

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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...most Men Have Bound Their Eyes With One Or Another Handkerchief, And Attached Themselves To Some One Of These Communities Of Opinion. This Conformity Makes Them Not False In A Few Particulars, Authors Of A Few Lies, But False In All Particulars. Their Every Truth Is Not Quite True. Their Two Is Not The Real Two, Their Four Not The Real Four; So That Every Word They Say Chagrins Us, And We Know Not Where To Begin To Set Them Right.

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Do Not Spill Thy Soul In Running Hither And Yon, Grieving Over The Mistakes And The Vices Of Others. The One Person Whom It Is Most Necessary To Reform Is Yourself.

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.

Self-trust Is The First Secret Of Success.

Every Individual Man Has A Bias Which He Must Obey, And...it Is Only As He Feels And Obeys This That He Rightly Develops And Attains His Legitimate Power In The World. It Is His Magnetic Needle, Which Points Always In One Direction To His Proper Path.... He Is Never Happy Nor Strong Until He Finds It, Keeps It.

Little Thinks, In The Field, Yon Red-cloaked Clown, Of Thee, From The Hill-top Looking Down; And The Heifer, That Lows In The Upland Farm, Far-heard, Lows Not Thine Ear To Charm; The Sexton Tolling The Bell At Noon, Dreams Not That Great Napoleon Sto

Your Work Should Be In Praise Of What You Love.

The Highest Compact We Can Make With Our Fellow Is - "let There Be Truth Between Us Two Forevermore."

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.

Few People Have Any Next, They Live From Hand To Mouth Without A Plan, And Are Always At The End Of Their Line.

Great Geniuses Have The Shortest Biographies.

The Rage For Road Building Is Beneficent For America, Where Vast Distance Is So Main A Consideration In Our Domestic Politics Andtrade, Inasmuch As The Great Political Promise Of The Invention Is To Hold The Union Staunch, Whose Days Already Seem Numbered By The Mere Inconvenience Of Transporting Representatives, Judges And Officers Across Such Tedious Distances Of Land And Water.

A Little Praise Goes A Great Ways.

We Are Such Lovers Of Self-reliance, That We Excuse In A Man Many Sins, If He Will Show Us A Complete Satisfaction In His Position, Which Asks No Leave To Be, Of Mine, Or Any Man's Good Opinion.

Life Is Not So Short But That There Is Always Time Enough For Courtesy.

A Good Deal Of Our Politics Is Physiological.

But Also The Constituency Determines The Vote Of The Representative. He Is Not Only Representative, But Participant. Like Can Onlybe Known By Like. The Reason Why He Knows About Them Is, That He Is Of Them; He Has Just Come Out Of Nature, Or From Being A Part Of The Thing.

Let A Man Then Know His Worth And Keep Things Under His Feet.

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

The Way To Write Is To Throw Your Body At The Mark When Your Arrows Are Spent.

A Determined Man, By His Very Attitude And The Tone Of His Voice, Puts A Stop To Defeat, And Begins To Conquer.

You Cannot Institute, Without Peril Of Charlatanism.

Adopt The Pace Of Nature: Her Secret Is Patience.

The True Test Of Civilization Is Not The Census, Nor The Size Of Cities, Nor The Crops - No, But The Kind Of Man The Country Turns Out.

In The Vaunted Works Of Art, The Master-stroke Is Nature's Part.

The River Knows The Way To The Sea: Without A Pilot It Runs And Falls, Blessing All Lands With Its Charity.

Self-command Is The Main Elegance.

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

By Going One Step Further Back In Thought, Discordant Opinions Are Reconciled By Being Seen To Be Two Extremes Of One Principle, And We Can Never Go So Far Back As To Preclude A Still Higher Vision.

Cities Force Growth And Make Men Talkative And Entertaining, But They Make Them Artificial. What Possesses Interest For Us Is Thenatural Of Each, His Constitutional Excellence. This Is Forever A Surprise, Engaging And Lovely; We Cannot Be Satiated With Knowing It, And About It; And It Is This Which The Conversation With Nature Cherishes And Guards.

The Book Written Against Fame And Learning Has The Author's Name On The Title-page.

The Affirmative Class Monopolize The Homage Of Mankind. They Originate And Execute All The Great Feats. What A Force Was Coiled Upin The Skull Of Napoleon!

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.

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.

Concentration Is The Secret Of Strength In Politics, In War, In Trade, In Short In All Management Of Human Affairs.

Focus And Concentration

You Cannot Make A Cheap Palace.

Most Of The Shadows Of This Life Are Caused By Standing In One's Own Sunshine.

Thus Inevitably Does The Universe Wear Our Color, And Every Object Fall Successively Into The Subject Itself. The Subject Exists, The Subject Enlarges; All Things Sooner Or Later Fall Into Place. As I Am, So I See; Use What Language We Will, We Can Never Say Anything But What We Are.

The Charming Landscape Which I Saw This Morning Is Indubitably Made Up Of Some Twenty Or Thirty Farms. Miller Owns This Field, Locke That, And Manning The Woodland Beyond. But None Of Them Owns The Landscape. There Is Property In The Horizon Which No Man Has But He Whose Eye Can Integrate All Parts, That Is, The Poet. This Is The Best Part Of These Men's Farms, Yet To This Their Warranty-deeds Give No Title.

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

When He Is Pushed, Tormented, Defeated, He Has A Chance To Learn Something; ... He Learns His Ignorance, Is Cured Of The Insanity Of Conceit; Has Got Moderation And Real Skill.

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

The Mark Of The Man Of The World Is Absence Of Pretension. He Does Not Make A Speech; He Takes A Low Business-tone, Avoids All Brag, Is Nobody, Dresses Plainly, Promises Not At All, Performs Much, Speaks In Monosyllables, Hugs His Fact.

Add Energy, Inspire Hope, And Blow The Coals Into A Useful Flame.

A Man Is Relieved And Gay When He Has Put His Heart Into His Work And Done His Best; But What He Has Said Or Done Otherwise Shall Give Him No Peace.

There Is A Mortifying Experience In Particular, Which Does Not Fail To Wreak Itself Also In The General History; I Mean "the Foolish Face Of Praise," The Forced Smile Which We Put On In Company Where We Do Not Feel At Ease, In Answer To Conversation Which Does Not Interest Us. The Muscles, Not Spontaneously Moved But Moved, By A Low Usurping Wilfulness, Grow Tight About The Outline Of The Face, With The Most Disagreeable Sensation.

The Cheapness Of Man Is Every Day's Tragedy.

Women See Better Than Men. Men See Lazily, If They Do Not Expect To Act. Women See Quite Without Any Wish To Act.

The Eyes Of Men Converse As Much As Their Tongues, With The Advantage That The Ocular Dialect Needs No Dictionary, But Is Understood All The World Over.

God Will Have Life To Be Real; We Will Be Damned, But It Shall Be Theatrical.

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.

To The Young Mind Every Thing Is Individual, Stands By Itself. By And By, It Finds How To Join Two Things And See In Them One Nature; Then Three, Then Three Thousand; And So, Tyrannized Over By Its Own Unifying Instinct, It Goes On Tying Things Together, Diminishing Anomalies, Discovering Roots Running Under Ground Whereby Contrary And Remote Things Cohere And Flower Out From One Stem.

How Can We Speak Of The Action Of The Mind Under Any Divisions, As Of Its Knowledge, Of Its Ethics, Of Its Works, And So Forth, Since It Melts Will Into Perception, Knowledge Into Act? Each Becomes The Other. Itself Alone Is.

Great Men Do Not Content Us. It Is Their Solitude, Not Their Force, That Makes Them Conspicuous.

Sorrow Makes Us All Children Again.

Free Should Be The Scholar - Free And Brave.

All Power Is Of One Kind, A Sharing Of The Nature Of The World. The Mind That Is Parallel With The Laws Of Nature Will Be In The Current Of Events, And Strong With Their Strength.

We Are Taught By Great Actions That The Universe Is The Property Of Every Individual In It.

The Line Of Beauty Is The Line Of Perfect Economy.

If I Am The Devil's Child, I Will Live Then, By The Devil.

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

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

Stand Guard At The Portal Of Your Mind.

A Mob Cannot Be A Permanency: Everybody's Interest Requires That It Should Not Exist, And Only Justice Satisfies All.

Only To Youth Will Spring Be Spring.

The Spirit Only Can Teach. Not Any Profane Man, Not Any Sensual, Not Any Liar, Not Any Slave Can Teach, But Only He Can Give, Whohas; He Only Can Create, Who Is. The Man On Whom The Soul Descends, Through Whom The Soul Speaks, Alone Can Teach. Courage, Piety, Love, Wisdom, Can Teach; And Every Man Can Open His Door To These Angels, And They Shall Bring Him The Gift Of Tongues. But The Man Who Aims To Speak As Books Enable, As Synods Use, As The Fashion Guides, And As Interest Commands, Babbles. Let Him Hush.

Let Us Be Poised, And Wise, And Our Own, Today. Let Us Treat Men And Women Well; Treat Them As If They Were Real; Perhaps They Are.

Look Out! Behind You!

And The Glory Of Character Is In Affronting The Horrors Of Depravity To Draw Thence New Nobilities Of Power: As Art Lives And Thrills In New Use And Combining Of Contrasts, And Mining Into The Dark Evermore For Blacker Pits Of Night.

I Have Never Met A Man Who Was Not My Superior In Some Particular.

Of Nature Itself Upon The Soul; The Sunrise, The Haze Of Autumn, The Winter Starlight Seem Interlocutors; The Prevailing Sense Is That Of An Exposition In Poetry; A High Discourse, The Voice Of The Speaker Seems To Breathe As Much From The Landscape As From His Own Breast; It Is Nature Communing With The Seer.

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

What We Have Learned From Other Becomes Our Own Reflection.

If A Man Will Kick A Fact Out Of The Window, When He Comes Back He Finds It Again In The Chimney Corner.

A Man Is Known By The Books He Reads, By The Company He Keeps, By The Praise He Gives, By His Dress, By His Tastes, By His Distastes, By The Stories He Tells, By His Gait, By The Notion Of His Eye, By The Look Of His House, Of His Chamber; For Nothing On Earth Is Solitary But Every Thing Hath Affinities Infinite.

The Frost Which Kills The Harvest Of A Year Saves The Harvest Of A Century, By Destroying The Weevil Or The Locust.

Poverty Consist In Feeling Poor.

Commerce Is Of Trivial Import; Love, Faith, Truth Of Character, The Aspiration Of Man, These Are Sacred.

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.

The Perception Of The Comic Is A Tie Of Sympathy With Other Men.

The Poet's Habit Of Living Should Be Set On A Key So Low That The Common Influences Should Delight Him.

It Behooves Us To Be Careful What We Worship, For What We Are Worshipping We Are Becoming.

A Friend Is Janus-faced: He Looks To The Past And The Future. He Is The Child Of All My Foregoing Hours, The Prophet Of Those To Come, And The Harbinger Of A Greater Friend.

The Task Ahead Of Us Is Never As Great As The Power Behind Us.

Every Sunset Brings The Promise Of A New Dawn

Blessed Are Those Who Have No Talent!

Blessed Are Those

A Man In Pursuit Of Greatness Feels No Little Wants.

Let Ideas Establish Their Legitimate Sway Again In Society, Let Life Be Fair And Poetic, And The Scholars Will Gladly Be Lovers, Citizens, And Philanthropists.

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

Polarity, Or Action And Reaction, We Meet In Every Part Of Nature; In Darkness And Light; In Heat And Cold; In The Ebb And Flow Of Water; In Male And Female; In The Equation Of Quantity And Quality; In The Fluids Of The Animal Body; In The Systole An

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

Genius Always Finds Itself A Century Too Early.

Whenever You Are Sincerely Pleased You Are Nourished.

Our Chief Want Is Someone Who Will Inspire Us To Be What We Know We Could Be.

Men Talk As If Victory Were Something Fortunate. Work Is Victory.

No Man Ever Came To An Experience Which Was Satiating, But His Good Is Tidings Of A Better. Onward And Onward!

We Love It Because It Is Self Dependent, Self Derived, And Therefore Of An Old Immaculate Pedigree, Even If Shown In A Young Person.

In Like Manner The Effect Of Every Action Is Measured By The Depth Of The Sentiment From Which It Proceeds. The Great Man Knew Not That He Was Great. It Took A Century Or Two For That Fact To Appear. What He Did, He Did, He Did Because He Must; It Was The Most Natural Thing In The World, And Grew Out Of The Circumstances Of The Moment.

Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year. No Man Has Learned Anything Rightly, Until He Knows That Every Day Is Doomsday.

Inspirational Life

The Virtue You Would Like To Have, Assume It Is Already Yours, Appropriate It, Enter Into The Part And Live The Character Just As The Great Actor Is Absorbed In... The Part He Plays.

Extremes Meet, And There Is No Better Example Than The Naughtiness Of Humility.

Writing Should Be The Settlement Of Dew On The Leaf.

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

Be Yourself; No Base Imitator Of Another, But Your Best Self.

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

My Joy In Friends, Those Sacred People, Is My Consolation.

The Mass Of Men Worry Themselves Into Nameless Graves While Here And There A Great Unselfish Soul Forgets Himself Into Immortality.

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

He Is The Rich Man In Whom The People Are Rich, And He Is The Poor Man In Whom The People Are Poor; And How To Give Access To Themasterpieces Of Art And Nature, Is The Problem Of Civilization.

In A Cabinet Of Natural History, We Become Sensible Of A Certain Occult Recognition And Sympathy In Regard To The Most Unwieldy And Eccentric Forms Of Beast, Fish, And Insect.

A Sleeping Child Gives Me The Impression Of A Traveler In A Very Far Country.

What You Persist In Doing Gets Easier. The Task Hasn't Changed, But Your Ability To Do It Has Increased.

Eating Disorder

The Measure Of Mental Health Is The Disposition To Find Good Everywhere.

Society Has No Bribe For Me.

Language Is Fossil Poetry.

We Can See Well Into The Past; We Can Guess Shrewdly Into The Future, But That Which Is Rolled Up And Muffled In Impenetrable Folds Is Today.

A Man Of Good Sense But Of Little Faith, Whose Compassion Seemed To Lead Him To Church As Often As He Went There, Said To Me; 'that He Liked To Have Concerts, And Fairs, And Churches, And Other Public Amusements Go On.

We Do What We Must, And Call It By The Best Names We Can, And Would Fain Have The Praise Of Having Intended The Result Which Ensues.

Science Always Goes Abreast With The Just Elevation Of The Man, Keeping Step With Religion And Metaphysics; Or, The State Of Science Is An Index Of Our Self-knowledge.

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.

Some Of The Sweetest Hours In Life, In Retrospect Will Be Found To Have Been Spent With Books.

It Sometimes Occurs That Memory Has A Personality Of Its Own And Volunteers Or Refuses Its Information At Its Will, Not At Mine.

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.

Postpone Not Your Life.

Procrastination

I Think It Is The Best Of Humanity That Goes Out To Walk. In Happy Hours, I Think All Affairs May Be Wisely Postponed For Walking.

There Is Genius As Well In Virtue As In Intellect. 'tis The Doctrine Of Faith Over Works.

The Day Is Always His, Who Works In It With Serenity And Great Aims.

A Man In The Wrong May More Easily Be Convinced Than One Half Right.

Grow Angry Slowly - There's Plenty Of Time.

Thus Grows Up Fashion, An Equivocal Semblance, The Most Puissant, The Most Fantastic And Frivolous, The Most Feared And Followed, And Which Morals And Violence Assault In Vain.

Practice Makes Perfect - The Sooner You Start, The Sooner You Will Be A Happy Nonsmoker

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

Character Is Higher Than Intellect. Thinking Is The Function; Living Is The Functionary.

I Suffer Whenever I See That Common Sight Of A Parent Or Senior Imposing His Opinion And Way Of Thinking And Being On A Young Soul To Which They Are Totally Unfit. Cannot We Let People Be Themselves, And Enjoy Life In Their Own Way? You Are Trying To Make That Man Another You. One's Enough.

All The Tools And Engines On Earth Are Only Extensions Of Man's Limbs And Senses.

The Essence Of Friendship Is Entireness, A Total Magnanimity And Trust.

The Cannon Will Not Suffer Any Other Sound To Be Heard For Miles And For Years Around It.

Every Day, The Sun; And, After Sunset, Night And Her Stars. Ever The Winds Blow; Ever The Grass Grows. Every Day, Men And Women, Conversing, Beholding And Beholden. The Scholar Is He Of All Men Whom This Spectacle Most Engages. He Must Settle Its Value In His Mind. What Is Nature To Him?

The Man (or Woman) Who Can Make Hard Things Easy Is The Educator.

The Sentiment Of Virtue Is A Reverence And Delight In The Presence Of Certain Divine Laws. It Perceives That This Homely Game Of Life We Play, Covers, Under What Seem Foolish Details, Principles That Astonish.

We Begin With Friendships, And All Our Youth Is A Reconnoitering And Recruiting Of The Holy Fraternity They Shall Combine For Thesalvation Of Men. But So The Remoter Stars Seem A Nebula Of United Light, Yet There Is No Group Which A Telescope Will Not Resolve; And The Dearest Friends Are Separated By Impassable Gulfs.

The World Is Emblematic. Parts Of Speech Are Metaphors, Because The Whole Of Nature Is A Metaphor Of The Human Mind.

Great Is Paint; Nay, God Is The Painter; And We Rightly Accuse The Critic Who Destroys Too Many Illusions. Society Does Not Love Its Unmaskers.

Dare To Live The Life You Have Dreamed For Yourself. Go Forward And Make Your Dreams Come True.

Books Are The Best Of Things, Well Used; Abused, Among The Worst...they Are For Nothing But To Inspire.

We Are Immersed In Beauty, But Our Eyes Have No Clear Vision.

All Men Plume Themselves On The Improvement Of Society, And No Man Improves.

Men Should Take Their Knowledge From The Sun, The Moon And The Stars.

It Is The Doctrine Of The Popular Music-masters, That Whoever Can Speak Can Sing. So, Probably, Every Man Is Eloquent Once In His Life. Our Temperaments Differ In Capacity Of Heat, Or

Fate Is Nothing But The Deeds Committed In A Prior State Of Existence.

Spurious Prudence, Making The Senses Final, Is The God Of Sots And Cowards, And Is The Subject Of All Comedy. It Is Nature's Joke, And Therefore Literature's. True Prudence Limits This Sensualism By Admitting The Knowledge Of An Internal And Real World.

How Painful To Give A Gift To Any Person Of Sensibility, Or Of Equality! It Is Next Worst To Receiving One

The Populace Drags Down The Gods To Their Own Level.

In These Divine Pleasures Permitted To Me Of Walks In The June Night Under Moon And Stars, I Can Put My Life As A Fact Before Me And Stand Aloof From Its Honor And Shame.

The Roses Under My Window Make No Reference To Former Roses Or Better Ones; They Are What They Are; They Exist With God Today. There Is No Time To Them. There Is Simply The Rose; It Is Perfect In Every Moment Of Its Existence.

Men Who Know The Same Things Are Not Long The Best Company For Each Other.

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

The World Is A Divine Dream, From Which We May Presently Awake To The Glories And Certainties Of Day.

The Light By Which We See In This World Comes Out From The Soul Of The Observer. Wherever Any Noble Sentiment Dwelt, It Made The Faces And Houses Around To Shine. Nay, The Powers Of This Busy Brain Are Miraculous And Illimitable.

The Things Taught In Schools & Colleges Are Not An Education But The Means Of Education.

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

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.

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.

The First Farmer Was The First Man, And All Historic Nobility Rests On Possession And Use Of Land.

Men Grind And Grind In The Mill Of A Truism, And Nothing Comes Out But What Was Put In. But The Moment They Desert The Tradition For A Spontaneous Thought, Then Poetry, Wit, Hope, Virtue, Learning, Anecdote, And All Flock To Their Aid.

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.

No Nation Has Produced Anything Like His Equal. There Is No Quality In The Human Mind, There Is No Class Of Topics, There Is No Region Of Thought, In Which He Has Not Soared Or Descended, And None In Which He Has Not Said The Commanding Word.

Nothing In Nature Is Exhausted In Its First Use...in God, Every End Is Converted Into A New Means.

What School, College, Or Lecture Bring Men Depends On What Men Bring To Carry It Home In.

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

Yourself A Newborn Bard Of The Holy Ghost, Cast Behind You All Conformity, And Acquaint Men At First Hand With Deity.

It Is Wonderful How Soon A Piano Gets Into A Log-hut On The Frontier. You Would Think They Found It Under A Pine-stump. With It Comes A Latin Grammar, And One Of Those Tow-head Boys Has Written A Hymn On Sunday. Now Let Colleges, Now Let Senates Take Heed! For Here Is One Who, Opening These Fine Tastes On The Basis Of The Pioneer's Iron Constitution, Will Gather All Their Laurels In His Strong Hands.

It Is Contended That Those Who Have Been Bred At Eton, Harrow, Rugby, And Westminster, That The Public Sentiment Within Each Of Those Schools Is High-toned And Manly; That, In Their Playgrounds, Courage Is Universally Admired, Meanness Despised, Manly Feelings And Generous Conduct Are Encouraged: That An Unwritten Code Of Honor Deals To The Spoiled Child Of Rank, And To The Child Of Upstart Wealth An Even-handed Justice, Purges Their Nonsense Out Of Both, And Does All That Can Be Done To Make Them Gentlemen.

Experience Is The Only Teacher, And We Get His Lesson Indifferently In Any School.

We Rail At Trade, But The Historian Of The World Will See That It Was The Principle Of Liberty; That It Settled America, And Destroyed Feudalism, And Made Peace And Keeps Peace; That It Will Abolish Slavery.

A Healthy Soul Stands United With The Just And The True, As The Magnet Arranges Itself With The Pole, So That He Stands To All Beholders Like A Transparent Object Betwixt Them And The Sun, And Whoso Journeys Towards The Sun, Journeys Towards That Person. He Is Thus The Medium Of The Highest Influence To All Who Are Not On The Same Level.

Popularity Is For Dolls.

If A Man Knew Anything, He Would Sit In A Corner And Be Modest; But He Is Such An Ignorant Peacock, That He Goes Bustling Up And Down, And Hits On Extraordinary Discoveries.

Tis Good-will Makes Intelligence.

No Man Ever Prayed Heartily Without Learning Something.

We Never Touch But At Points.

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.

What Strength Belongs To Every Plant And Animal In Nature. The Tree Or The Brook Has No Duplicity, No Pretentiousness, No Show. It Is, With All Its Might And Main, What It Is, And Makes One And The Same Impression And Effect At All Times. All The Thoughts Of A Turtle Are Turtle's, And Of A Rabbit, Rabbit's. But A Man Is Broken And Dissipated By The Giddiness Of His Will; He Does Not Throw Himself Into His Judgments; His Genius Leads Him One Way But 't Is Likely His Trade Or Politics In Quite Another.

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

War Educates The Senses, Calls Into Action The Will, Perfects The Physical Constitution, Brings Men Into Such Swift And Close Collision In Critical Moments That Man Measures Man.

Saving Private Ryan

Four Snakes Gliding Up And Down A Hollow For No Purpose That I Could See - Not To Eat, Not For Love, But Only Gliding.

If The Stars Should Appear But One Night Every Thousand Years How Man Would Marvel And Stare.

Give Me Wine To Wash Me Clean Of The Weather-stains Of Cares

The Art Of Conversation, Or The Qualification For A Good Companion, Is A Certain Self-control, Which Now Holds The Subject, Now Lets It Go, With A Respect For The Emergencies Of The Moment.

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

What Is The City In Which We Sit Here, But An Aggregate Of Incongruous Materials, Which Have Obeyed The Will Of Some Man?

The Lover Is Made Happier By His Love Than The Object Of His Affection.

Is There A Difference? Yes. We Are In Harmony With Nature, But Never At Peace.

Great Thoughts Ensure Musical Expression.

Musical Expression

A Good Symbol Is The Best Argument, And Is A Missionary To Persuade Thousands.

He Is Great Who Is What He Is From Nature, And Who Never Reminds Us Of Others.

When The Boys Come Into My Yard For Leave To Gather Horse-chestnuts, I Own I Enter Into Nature's Game, And Affect To Grant The Permission Reluctantly, Fearing That Any Moment They Will Find Out The Imposture Of That Showy Chaff. But This Tenderness Is Quite Unnecessary; The Enchantments Are Laid On Very Thick. Their Young Life Is Thatched With Them. Bare And Grim To Tears Is The Lot Of The Children In The Hovel I Saw Yesterday; Yet Not The Less They Hang It Round With Frippery Romance, Like The Children Of The Happiest Fortune.

Give Me Truths For I Am Weary Of The Surfaces.

One Idea Lights A Thousand Candles.

Our Young People Are Diseased With The Theological Problems Of Original Sin, Origin Of Evil, Predestination, And The Like. These Never Presented A Practical Difficulty To Any Man,--never Darkened Across Any Man's Road, Who Did Not Go Out Of His Way To Seek Them. These Are The Soul's Mumps, And Measles, And Whooping- Coughs, And Those Who Have Not Caught Them Cannot Describe Their Health Or Prescribe A Cure. A Simple Mind Will Not Know These Enemies.

We Learn Geology The Morning After The Earthquake, On Ghastly Diagrams Of Cloven Mountains, Upheaved Plains, And The Dry Bed Of The Sea.

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