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Nature Never Rhymes Her Children, Nor Makes Two Men Alike. When We See A Great Man, We Fancy A Resemblance To Some Historical Person, And Predict The Sequel Of His Character And Fortune, A Result Which He Is Sure To Disappoint. None Will Ever Solve The Problem Of His Character According To Our Prejudice, But Only In His High Unprecedented Way.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Nature Never Rhymes Her

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Nature Never Rhymes Her Children, Nor Makes Two Men Alike. When We See A Great Man, We Fancy A Resemblance To Some Historical Person, And Predict The Sequel Of His Character And Fortune, A Result Which He Is Sure To Disappoint. None Will Ever Solve The Problem Of His Character According To Our Prejudice, But Only In His High Unprecedented Way.

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In Every Society Some Men Are Born To Rule, And Some To Advise.

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

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

Society Never Advances. It Recedes As Fast On One Side As It Gains On The Other. Society Acquires New Arts, And Loses Old Instincts.

Between Cultivated Minds The First Interview Is The Best.

Imagination Is A Very High Sort Of Seeing, Which Does Not Come By Study, But By The Intellect Being Where And What It Sees, By Sharing The Path, Or Circuits Of Things Through Forms, And So Making Them Translucid To Others.

Each Man Too Is A Tyrant In Tendency, Because He Would Impose His Idea On Others; And Their Trick Is Their Natural Defence. Jesuswould Absorb The Race; But Tom Paine Or The Coarsest Blasphemer Helps Humanity By Resisting This Exuberance Of Power.

Knowledge Is The Antidote To Fear,- Knowledge, Use And Reason, With Its Higher Aids.

It Is Impossible For A Man To Be Cheated By Anyone But Himself.

The Sea, Washing The Equator And The Poles, Offers Its Perilous Aid, And The Power And Empire That Follow It... ''beware Of Me,'' It Says, ''but If You Can Hold Me, I Am The Key To All The Lands.

Wherever There Is Power There Is Age.

The Greek Epigram Intimates That The Force Of Love Is Not Shown By The Courting Of Beauty, But Where The Like Desire Is Inflamed For One Who Is Ill-favored.

A Scholar Is A Man With His Inconvenience, That, When You Ask Him His Opinion Of Any Matter, He Must Go Home And Look Up His Manuscripts To Know.

The Corruption Of Man Is Followed By The Corruption Of Language. ... In Due Time, The Fraud Is Manifest, And Words Lose All Power To Stimulate The Understanding Or The Affections.

They Who Talk Much Of Destiny, Their Birth-star, Etc., Are In A Lower Dangerous Plane, And Invite The Evils They Fear.

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.

Sunday Is The Core Of Our Civilization, Dedicated To Thought And Reverence.

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.

Few People Know How To Take A Walk. The Qualifications Are Endurance, Plain Clothes, Old Shoes, An Eye For Nature, Good Humor, Vast Curiosity, Good Speech, Good Silence And Nothing Too Much.

There Is A Persuasion In The Soul Of Man That He Is Here For Cause, That He Was Put Down In This Place By The Creator To Do The Work For Which He Inspires Him, That Thus He Is An Overmatch For All Antagonists That Could Combine Against Him.

If In The Least Particular, One Could Derange The Order Of Nature, Who Would Accept The Gift Of Life?

Justice Satisfies Everybody, And Justice Alone.

When A Happy Person Comes Into The Room, It Is As If Another Candle Has Been Lit.

The Fatal Trait Of The Times Is The Divorce Between Religion And Morality.

The Soul Refuses Limits And Always Affirms An Optimism, Never A Pessimism.

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.

The Soul Comes From Without Into The Human Body, As Into A Temporary Abode, And It Goes Out Of It Anew It Passes Into Other Habitations, For The Soul Is Immortal.

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.

All Is A Riddle, And The Key To A Riddle...is Another Riddle.

Men Are Born To Write. The Gardener Saves Every Slip, And Seed, And Peach-stone: His Vocation Is To Be A Planter Of Plants. Not Less Does The Writer Attend His Affair. Whatever He Beholds Or Experiences, Comes To Him As A Model, And Sits For Its Picture. He Counts It All Nonsense That They Say, That Some Things Are Undescribable. He Believes That All That Can Be Thought Can Be Written, First Or Last; And He Would Report The Holy Ghost, Or Attempt It.

Our Poets Are Men Of Talents Who Sing, And Not The Children Of Music.

I Thought As I Rode In The Cold Pleasant Light Of Sunday Morning How Silent & Passive Nature Offers, Every Morn, Her Wealth To Man; She Is Immensely Rich, He Is Welcome To Her Entire Goods, Which He Speaks No Word, Only Leaves Over Doors Ajar, Hall, Store Room, & Cellar. He May Do As He Will: If He Takes Her Hint & Uses Her Goods, She Speaks No Word; If He Blunders & Starves, She Says Nothing.

None Of Us Will Ever Accomplish Anything Excellent Or Commanding Except When He Listens To This Whisper Which Is Heard By Him Alone.

Murder In The Murderer Is No Such Ruinous Thought As Poets And Romancers Will Have It; It Does Not Unsettle Him, Or Fright Him From His Ordinary Notice Of Trifles; It Is An Act Quite Easy To Be Contemplated.

Say, What Other Metre Is It Than The Meeting Of The Eyes? Nature Poureth Into Nature Through The Channels Of That Feature Riding On The Ray Of Sight, Fleeter Far Than Whirlwinds Go, Or For Service, Or Delight, Hearts To Hearts Their Meaning Show.

Let Us Unlearn Our Wisdom Of The World. Let Us Lie Low In The Lord's Power, And Learn That Truth Alone Makes Rich And Great.

Earth Laughs In Flowers To See Her Boastful Boys Earth-proud, Proud Of The Earth Which Is Not Theirs; Who Steer The Plough, But Cannot Steer Their Feet Clear Of The Grave.

When The Vain Speaker Has Sat Down, And The People Say 'what A Good Speech,' It Still Takes An Ounce To Balance An Ounce.

It Was High Counsel That I Once Heard Given To A Young Person, 'always Do What You Are Afraid To Do.'

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

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

Our Debt To Tradition Through Reading And Conversation Is So Massive, Our Protest So Rare And Insignificant-and This Commonly On The Ground Of Other Reading And Hearing-that In Large Sense, One Would Say There Is No Pure Originality. All Minds Quote. Old And New Make The Warp And Woof Of Every Moment. There Is No Thread That Is Not A Twist Of These Two Strands. By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote. It Is As Difficult To Appropriate The Thoughts Of Others As It Is To Invent.

Persons Are Fine Things, But They Cost So Much! For Thee I Must Pay Me.

Eloquence Shows The Power And Possibility Of Man. There Is One Of Whom We Took No Note, But On A Certain Occasion It Appears That He Has A Secret Virtue Never Suspected - That He Can Paint What Has Occurred And What Must Occur, With Such Clearness To A Company, As If They Saw It Done Before Their Eyes. By Leading Their Thought He Leads Their Will, And Can Make Them Do Gladly What An Hour Ago They Would Not Believe That They Could Be Led To Do At All.

When A Resolute Young Fellow Steps Up To The Great Bully, The World, And Takes Him Boldly By The Beard, He Is Often Surprised To Find It Comes Off In His Hand, And That It Was Only Tied On To Scare Away The Timid Adventurers.

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

There Is A Time When A Man Distinguishes The Idea Of Felicity From The Idea Of Wealth; It Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.

No Man Should Travel Until He Has Learned The Language Of The Country He Visits. Otherwise He Voluntarily Makes Himself A Great Baby - So Helpless And So Ridiculous.

Man Was Born To Be Rich, Or Grow Rich By Use Of His Faculties, By The Union Of Thought With Nature. Property Is An Intellectual Production. The Game Requires Coolness, Right Reasoning, Promptness, And Patience In The Players.

I Like Sayers Of No Better Than I Like Sayers Of Yes.

But The Best Read Naturalist Who Lends An Entire And Devout Attention To Truth, Will See That There Remains Much To Learn Of His Relation To The World, And That It Is Not To Be Learned By Any Addition Or Subtraction Or Other Comparison Of Known Quantities, But Is Arrived At By Untaught Sallies Of The Spirit, By A Continual Self-recovery, And By Entire Humility.

Hence, Instead Of Man Thinking, We Have The Bookworm. Hence, The Book-learned Class, Who Value Books, As Such; Not As Related To Nature And The Human Constitution, But As Making A Sort Of Third Estate With The World And The Soul. Hence, The Restorers Of Readings, The Emendators, The Bibliomaniacs Of All Degrees.

We Find Delight In The Beauty And Happiness Of Children That Makes The Heart Too Big For The Body.

Some Eyes Threaten Like A Loaded And Levelled Pistol, And Others Are As Insulting As Hissing Or Kicking; Some Have No More Expression Than Blueberries, While Others Are As Deep As A Well Which You Can Fall Into.

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions.

Will And Determination

Science Does Not Know Its Debt To Imagination. Goethe Did Not Believe That A Great Naturalist Could Exist Without This Faculty.

Let Us Advance On Chaos And The Dark

Some Books Leave Us Free And Some Books Make Us Free.

Books And Reading

The Student Is To Read History Actively And Not Passively; To Esteem His Own Life The Text, And Books The Commentary. Thus Compelled, The Muse Of History Will Utter Oracles As Never To Those Who Do Not Respect Themselves.

The Days Come And Go But They Say Nothing, And If We Do Not Use The Gifts They Bring, They Carry Them As Silently Away.

There Is No One Who Does Not Exaggerate. In Conversation, Men Are Encumbered With Personality, And Talk Too Much.

Exaggeration Is

I Like The Silent Church Before The Service Begins, Better Than Any Preaching. How Far Off, How Cool, How Chaste The Persons Look,begirt Each One With A Precinct Or Sanctuary!

Echo Waits With Art And Care And Will The Faults Of Song Repair.

Whatever It Is, It's Better In The Wind.

Politics Is A Deleterious Profession, Like Some Poisonous Handicrafts.

Human Beings Cannot Endure The Geological Chaos They Encounter Under The Soil Of Their Own Gardens.

Repose And Cheerfulness Is The Badge Of The Gentleman; Repose In Energy.

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

We Lie In The Lap Of Immense Intelligence.

A Collector Recently Bought At Public Auction, In London, For One Hundred And Fifty-seven Guineas, An Autograph Of Shakespeare; But For Nothing A School-boy Can Read Hamlet And Can Detect Secrets Of Highest Concernment Yet Unpublished Therein.

My Life Should Be Unique; It Should Be An Alms, A Battle, A Conquest, A Medicine.

A Nation, Like A Tree, Does Not Thrive Well Till It Is Engraffed With A Foreign Stock.

I Like To Have A Person's Knowledge Comprehend More Than One Class Of Topics, One Row Of Shelves. I Like A Person Who Likes To See A Fine Barn As Well As A Good Tragedy.

Man Is A Stream Whose Source Is Hidden. Our Being Is Descending Into Us From We Know Not Whence. The Most Exact Calculator Has Noprescience That Somewhat Incalculable May Not Balk The Very Next Moment. I Am Constrained Every Moment To Acknowledge A Higher Origin For Events Than The Will I Call Mine.

Don't Ever Give Up On Something Or Someone That You Can't Go A Full Day Without Thinking About.

The Course Of Everything Goes To Teach Us Faith.

The Intellect,-that Is Miraculous! Who Has It, Has The Talisman: His Skin And Bones, Though They Were Of The Color Of Night, Are Transparent, And The Everlasting Stars Shine Through, With Attractive Beams.

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.

Men Of Sense Esteem Wealth To Be The Assimilation Of Nature To Themselves, The Converting Of The Sap And Juices Of The Planet To The Incarnation And Nutriment Of Their Design.

Law Rules Throughout Existence, A Law Which Is Not Intelligent, But Intelligence.

The Days Are Made On A Loom Whereof The Warp And Woof Are Past And Future Time. They Are Majestically Dressed, As If Every God Brought A Thread To The Skyey Web.

The Effect Of The Indulgence Of Human Affection Is A Certain Cordial Exhilaration.

From Within Or From Behind, A Light Shines Through Us Upon Things, And Makes Us Aware That We Are Nothing, But The Light Is All.

Open The Doors Of Opportunity To Talent And Virtue And They Will Do Themselves Justice, And Property Will Not Be In Bad Hands.

Nature And Books Belong To The Eyes That See Them.

The Soul Raised Over Passion Beholds Identity And Eternal Causation, Perceives The Self-existance Of Truth And Right, And Calms Itself With Knowing That All Things Go Well.

The Astronomers Said, 'give Us Matter And A Little Motion And We Will Construct The Universe. It Is Not Enough That We Should Have Matter, We Must Also Have A Single Impulse, One Shove To Launch The Mass And Generate The Harmony Of The Centrifugal And Centripetal Forces.' ... There Is No End To The Consequences Of The Act. That Famous Aboriginal Push Propagates Itself Through All The Balls Of The System, And Through Every Atom Of Every Ball.

Every Ship That Comes To America Got Its Chart From Columbus.

There Is Some Reason To Believe That When A Man Does Not Write His Poetry It Escapes By Other Vents Through Him, Instead Of The One Vent Of Writing; Clings To His Form And Manners, Whilst Poets Have Often Nothing Poetical About Them Except Their Verses.

Man Exists For His Own Sake And Not To Add A Laborer To The State.

Action Is With The Scholar Subordinate, But It Is Essential. Without It, He Is Not Yet Man. Without It, Thought Can Never Ripen Into Truth.

Crime And Punishment Grow Out Of One Stem. Punishment Is A Fruit That Unsuspected Ripens Within The Flower Of The Pleasure Which Concealed It.

The Poet Alone Knows Astronomy, Chemistry, Vegetation, And Animation, For He Does Not Stop At These Facts, But Employs Them As Signs. He Knows Why The Plain, Or Meadow Of Space, Was Strown With These Flowers We Call Suns, And Moons, And Stars; Why The Deep Is Adorned With Animals, With Men, And Gods; For, In Every Word He Speaks He Rides On Them As The Horses Of Thought.

Every Man Has A Vocation. The Talent Is The Call.

Your Actions Speak So Loud, I Can't Hear What You Say.

As Every Pool Reflects The Image Of The Sun, So Every Thought And Thing Restores Us An Image And Creature Of The Supreme Good. Theuniverse Is Perforated By A Million Channels For His Activity. All Things Mount And Mount.

The Wise Know That Foolish Legislation Is A Rope Of Sand, Which Perishes In The Twisting.

The Soul Is No Traveller; The Wise Man Stays At Home, And When His Necessities, His Duties, On Any Occasion Call Him From His House, Or Into Foreign Lands, He Is At Home Still, And Shall Make Men Sensible By The Expression Of His Countenance, That He Goes The Missionary Of Wisdom And Virtue, And Visits Cities And Men Like A Sovereign, And Not Like An Interloper Or A Valet.

Luckily For Us, Now That Steam Has Narrowed The Atlantic To A Strait, The Nervous, Rocky West Is Intruding A New And Continental Element Into The National Mind, As We Shall Yet Have An American Genius.

Preaching Is The Expression Of Moral Sentiments Applied To The Duties Of Life.

All Vigor Is Contagious.

A Cynic Can Chill And Dishearten With A Single Word.

All Great Men Come Out Of The Middle Classes.

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

Fear Defeats More People Than Any Other One Thing In The World.

Talent May Frolic And Juggle; Genius Realizes And Adds.

As The Eye Is The Best Composer, So Light Is The First Of Painters. There Is No Object So Foul That Intense Light Will Not Make Beautiful; And The Stimulus It Affords To The Sense, And A Sort Of Infinitude Which It Hath Like Space And Time, Make All Matter Gay.

Headwinds Are Sore Vexations And The More Passengers The Sorer.

We Are Shut Up In School And College Recitation Rooms For Ten To Fifteen Years, And Come Out At Last With A Bellyful Of Words And Do Not Know A Thing. We Cannot Use Our Hands, Or Our Legs, Or Our Eyes, Or Our Arms. We Do Not Know An Edible Root In The Woods. We Cannot Tell Our Course By The Stars, Nor The Hour Of Day By The Sun. It Is Well If We Can Swim And Skate. We Are Afraid Of A Horse Or A Cow, Of A Dog, Of A Cat, Of A Spider. Far Better Was The Roman Rule To Teach A Boy Nothing That He Could Not Learn Standing.

Good Poetry Could Not Have Been Otherwise Written Than It Is. The First Time You Hear It, It Sounds Rather As If Copied Out Of Some Invisible Tablet In The Eternal Mind Than As If Arbitrarily Composed By The Poet.

Marriage Is The Perfection Which Love Aimed At, Ignorant Of What It Sought.

The Life Of Labor Does Not Make Men, But Drudges.

Much Of The Wisdom Of The World Is Not Wisdom, And The Most Illuminated Class Of Men Are No Doubt Superior To Literary Fame, And Are Not Writers.

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

Friendship Should Be Surrounded With Ceremonies And Respects, And Not Crushed Into Corners.

Find The Journey's End In Every Step.

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

Nature Is No Spendthrift, But Takes The Shortest Way To Her Ends.

What We Commonly Call Man, The Eating, Drinking, Planting, Counting Man, Does Not, As We Know Him, Represent Himself, But Misrepresents Himself. Him We Do Not Respect, But The Soul, Whose Organ He Is, Would He Let It Appear Through His Action, Would Make Our Knees Bend.

The Americans Have Many Virtues, But They Have Not Faith And Hope. I Know No Two Words Whose Meaning Is More Lost Sight Of.

A Man In Pursuit Of Greatness Feels No Little Wants.

Many A Reformer Perishes In His Removal Of Rubbish,--and That Makes The Offensiveness Of The Class. They Are Partial; They Are Notequal To The Work They Pretend. They Lose Their Way; In The Assault On The Kingdom Of Darkness, They Expend All Their Energy On Some Accidental Evil, And Lose Their Sanity And Power Of Benefit.

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

A Good Indignation Makes An Excellent Speech.

As Men's Prayers Are A Disease Of The Will, So Are Their Creeds A Disease Of The Intellect.

No Man Ever Prayed Heartily Without Learning Something.

All Great Successes Are The Triumph Of Persistence.

There Is A Good Ear, In Some Men, That Draws Supplies To Virtue Out Of Very Indifferent Nutriment.

Things Bring Their Own Philosophy With Them, That Is, Prudence.

Life Consists In What A Man Is Thinking Of All Day.

A Poet Is No Rattlebrain, Saying What Comes Uppermost, And, Because He Says Every Thing, Saying, At Last, Something Good; But A Heart In Unison With His Time And Country. There Is Nothing Whimsical Or Fantastic In His Production, But Sweet And Sad Earnest, Freighted With The Weightiest Convictions, And Pointed With The Most Determined Aim Which Any Man Or Class Knows Of In His Times.

Of Immortality, The Soul, When Well Employed, Is Incurious. It Is So Well, That It Is Sure That It Will Be Well. It Asks No Questions Of The Supreme Power.

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.

Each Philosopher, Each Bard, Each Actor Has Only Done For Me, As By A Delegate, What One Day I Can Do For Myself.

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

He Walks Abreast With His Days And Feels No Shame In Not 'studying A Profession', For He Does Not Postpone His Life, But Lives Already. He Has Not One Chance, But A Hundred Chances.

Solitude Is Impractical And Yet Society Is Fatal.

A Great Teacher Makes Hard Things Easy.

The Hues Of The Opal, The Light Of The Diamond, Are Not To Be Seen If The Eye Is Too Near.

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.

The Highest Revelation Is That God Is In Every Man.

We Ought To Be Cautious In Taking Even The Best Ascertained Opinions And Practices Of The Primitive Church For Our Own. If It Could Be Satisfactorily Shown That They Esteemed It Authorized And Transmitted Forever, That Does Not Settle The Question For Us. We Know How Inveterately They Were Attached To Their Jewish Prejudices, And How Often Even The Influence Of Christ Failed To Enlarge Their Views. On Every Other Subject Succeeding Times Have Learned To Form A Judgement More In Accordance With The Spirit Of Christianity Than Was The Practice Of The Early Ages.

I Like People Who Like Plato.

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.

We Lie In The Lap Of Immense Intelligence, Which Makes Us Receivers Of Its Truth And Organ Of Its Activity. When We Discern Justice, When We Discern Truth, We Do Nothing By Ourselves, But Allow A Passage To Its Beams. If We Ask Whence This Comes, If We Seek To Pry Into The Soul That Causes, All Philosophy Is At Fault. Its Presence Or Its Absence Is All We Can Affirm.

Shakespeare Carries Us To Such A Lofty Strain Of Intelligent Activity, As To Suggest A Wealth Which Beggars His Own; And We Then Feel That The Splendid Works Which He Has Created, And Which In Other Hours We Extol As A Sort Of Self-existent Poetry, Take No Stronger Hold Of Real Nature Than The Shadow Of A Passing Traveller On The Rock. The Inspiration Which Uttered Itself In Hamlet And Lear Could Utter Things As Good From Day To Day, For Ever.

There Is A Crack In Everything God Has Made

The Wings Of Time Are Black And White, Pied With Morning And With Night.

Black And White

Friendship, Like The Immortality Of The Soul, Is Too Good To Be Believed.

The Man, Who Has Seen The Rising Moon Break Out Of The Clouds At Midnight, Has Been Present Like An Archangel At The Creation Of Light And Of The World.

We Prize Books, And They Prize Them Most Who Are Themselves Wise.

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.

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

Although Knaves Win In Every Political Struggle, Although Society Seems To Be Delivered Over From The Hands Of One Set Of Criminals Into The Hands Of Another Set Of Criminals, As Fast As The Government Is Changed, And The March Of Civilization Is A Train Of Felonies, Yet, General Ends Are Somehow Answered.

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

Let There Be Worse Cotton And Better Men.

The First And Last Lesson Of Religion Is, "the Things That Are Seen, Are Temporal; The Things That Are Unseen, Are Eternal." It Puts An Affront Upon Nature.

This Knot Of Nature Is So Well Tied That Nobody Was Ever Cunning Enough To Find The Two Ends.

The Surest Poison Is Time.

Time Management

Truth Is The Summit Of Being.

Build, Therefore, Your Own World. As Fast As You Conform Your Life To The Pure Idea In Your Mind, That Will Unfold It's Great Proportions.

The Merit Claimed For The Anglican Church Is That, If You Let It Alone, It Will Let You Alone.

Life Is Short But There Is Always Time For Courtesy.

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.

Five Great Enemies Of Peace Inhabit Us: Avarice, Ambition, Envy, Anger And Pride.

A Few Years Ago, The Liberal Churches Complained That The Calvinistic Church Denied To Them The Name Of Christian. I Think The Complaint Was Confession; A Religious Church Would Not Complain.

Nature Is An Endless Combination And Repetition Of A Very Few Laws. She Hums The Old Well-known Air Through Innumerable Variations.

To Be A Man Is To Be A Nonconformist.

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.

Fear, Craft And Avarice Cannot Rear A State.

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

The Lord Is The Peasant That Was, The Peasant Is The Lord That Shall Be.

In Nature, All Is Useful, All Is Beautiful. It Is Therefore Beautiful, Because It Is Alive, Moving, Reproductive; It Is Thereforeuseful, Because It Is Symmetrical And Fair. Beauty Will Not Come At The Call Of A Legislature, Nor Will It Repeat In England Or America Its History In Greece. It Will Come, As Always, Unannounced, And Spring Up Between The Feet Of Brave And Earnest Men.

Accept Your Genius And Say What You Think.

Our Friends Early Appear To Us As Representatives Of Certain Ideas, Which They Never Pass Or Exceed. They Stand On The Brink Of The Ocean Of Thought And Power, But They Never Take A Single Step That Would Bring Them There.

Or Whipping Its Rough Surface For A Trout.

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.

Every Individual Nature Has Its Own Beauty. One Is Struck In Every Company, At Every Fireside, With The Riches Of Nature, When He Hears So Many New Tones, All Musical, Sees In Each Person Original Manners, Which Have A Proper And Peculiar Charm, And Reads New Expressions Of Face. He Perceives That Nature Has Laid For Each The Foundations Of A Divine Building, If The Soul Will Build Thereon.

The Inquiry Leads Us To That Source, At Once The Essence Of Genius, Of Virtue, And Of Life, Which We Call Spontaneity Or Instinct.

The Bulk Of Mankind Believe In Two Gods. They Are Under One Dominion Here In The House, As Friend And Parent, In Social Circles, In Letters, In Art, In Love, In Religion; But In Mechanics, In Dealing With Steam And Climate, In Trade, In Politics, They Think They Come Under Another.

Every True Man Is A Cause, A Country, And An Age; Requires Infinite Spaces And Numbers And Time Fully To Accomplish His Design;--and Posterity Seem To Follow His Steps As A Train Of Clients.

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.

In A Library We Are Surrounded By Many Hundreds Of Dear Friends, But They Are Imprisoned By An Enchanter In These Paper And Leathern Boxes.

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

The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficient Distance, And It Straightens Itself To The Average Tendency. Your Genuine Action Will Explain Itself, And Will Explain Your Other Genuine Actions. Your Conformity Explains Nothing. Act Singly, And What You Have Already Done Singly Will Justify You Now. Greatness Appeals To The Future.

We Ascribe Beauty To That Which Is Simple; Which Has No Superfluous Parts; Which Exactly Answers Its End; Which Stands Related To All Things; Which Is The Mean Of Many Extremes.

You Need Someone Who Can Inspire You To Be What You Know You Can Be

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.

Every Opinion Reacts On Him Who Utters It.

If We Consider What Happens In Conversation, In Reveries, In Remorse, In Times Of Passion, In Surprises, In The Instructions Of Dreams, Wherein Often We See Ourselves In Masquerade,--the Droll Disguises Only Magnifying And Enhancing A Real Element, And Forcing It On Our Distinct Notice,--we Shall Catch Many Hints That Will Broaden And Lighten Into Knowledge Of The Secret Of Nature.

Manners Have Been Somewhat Cynically Defined To Be A Contrivance Of Wise Men To Keep Fools At A Distance. Fashion Is Shrewd To Detect Those Who Do Not Belong To Her Train, And Seldom Wastes Her Attentions. Society Is Very Swift In Its Instincts, And If You Do Not Belong To It, Resists And Sneers At You, Or Quietly Drops You.

Go Out Of The House To See The Moon, And 't Is Mere Tinsel; It Will Not Please As When Its Light Shines Upon Your Necessary Journey. The Beauty That Shimmers In The Yellow Afternoons Of October, Who Could Ever Clutch It? Go Forth To Find It, And It Is Gone: 't Is Only A Mirage As You Look From The Windows Of Diligence.

A Right Rule For A Club Would Be,-admit No Man Whose Presence Excludes Any One Topic.

Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Every One Of Its Members. The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity. Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

Love Is The Essence Of God.

Beauty Without Expression Is Boring.

This Body, Full Of Faults, Has Yet One Great Quality: Whatever It Encounters In This Temporal Life Depends Upon One's Actions.

The Test Of Civilization Is The Power Of Drawing The Most Benefit Out Of Cities.

Not Gold, But Only Man Can Make A People Great And Strong; Men Who, For Truth And Honor's Sake, Stand Fast And Suffer Long.

Nature Does Not Cocker Us: We Are Children, Not Pets: She Is Not Fond: Everything Is Dealt To Us Without Fear Or Favor, After Severe Universal Laws.

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Eleanor Roosevelt

Norodom Sihanouk

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