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Our Admiration Of The Antique Is Not Admiration Of The Old, But Of The Natural.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Our Admiration Of The

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Our Admiration Of The Antique Is Not Admiration Of The Old, But Of The Natural.

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Every Revolution Was First A Thought In One Man's Mind.

Live In The Sunshine, Swim The Sea, Drink The Wild Air.

Duty Grows Everywhere--like Children, Like Grass.

Painting Was Called Silent Poetry And Poetry Speaking Painting.

A Foolish Consistency Is The Hobgoblin Of Little Minds, Adored By Little Statesmen And Philosophers And Divines. With Consistency A Great Soul Has Simply Nothing To Do. He May As Well Concern Himself With His Shadow On The Wall. Speak What You Think Now In Hard Words And To-morrow Speak What To-morrow Thinks In Hard Words Again, Though It Contradict Every Thing You Said To-day.

He Then Learns That In Going Down Into The Secrets Of His Own Mind, He Has Descended Into The Secrets Of All Minds.

Behold The Sea, The Opaline, The Plentiful And Strong, Yet Beautiful As Is The Rose In June, Fresh As The Trickling Rainbow Of July; Sea Full Of Food, The Nourisher Of Kinds, Purger Of Earth, And Medicine Of Men; Creating A Sweet Climate By My Breath, Washing Out Harms And Griefs From Memory, And, In My Mathematic Ebb And Flow, Giving A Hint Of That Which Changes Not.

Be An Opener Of Doors

I Do Not See How A Barbarous Community And A Civilized Community Can Constitute A State. I Think We Must Get Rid Of Slavery Or We Must Get Rid Of Freedom.

A Ruddy Drop Of Manly Blood The Surging Sea Outweighs; The World Uncertain Comes And Goes, The Lover Rooted Stays.

The Less Government We Have The Better.

Society Is Frivolous, And Shreds Its Day Into Scraps, Its Conversation Into Ceremonies And Escapes.

I Cannot Go To The Houses Of My Nearest Relatives, Because I Do Not Wish To Be Alone. Society Exists By Chemical Affinity, And Not Otherwise.

The Cardinal Virtue Of A Teacher [is] To Protect The Pupil From His Own Influence.

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.

Whatever Limits Us We Call Fate.

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

Nature May Be As Selfishly Studied As Trade. Astronomy To The Selfish Becomes Astrology; Psychology, Mesmerism (with Intent To Show Where Aour Spoons Are Gone); And Anatomy And Physiology Become Phrenology And Palmistry.

A Song Is No Song Unless The Circumstance Is Free And Fine. If A Singer Sing From A Sense Of Duty Or From Seeing No Way To Escape,i Had Rather Have None. Those Only Can Sleep Who Do Not Care To Sleep; And Those Only Write Or Speak Best Who Do Not Too Much Respect The Writing Or The Speaking.

Let Us Be Silent — So We May Hear The Whisper Of The Gods.

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

There Is No Great And No Small To The Soul That Maketh All.

Time Is Indeed The Theater And Seat Of Illusions; Nothing Is So Ductile And Elastic. The Mind Stretches An Hour To A Century, And Dwarfs An Age To An Hour.

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.

...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.

Goodness That Preaches Undoes Itself.

Youth Is Everywhere In Place.

If You Would Learn To Write, It Is In The Street You Must Learn It. Both For The Vehicle And For The Aims Of Fine Arts, You Must Frequent The Public Square. The People, And Not The College, Is The Writer's Home. A Scholar Is A Candle Which The Love And Desire Of All Men Will Light.

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

Our Chief Want In Life Is Somebody Who Will Make Us Do What We Can.

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

We Are Reformers In The Spring And Summer, But In Autumn We Stand By The Old. Reformers In The Morning, And Conservers At Night.

Nature Turns All Malfaisance To Good.

Old And New Make The Warp And Woof Of Every Moment. There Is No Thread That Is Not A Twist Of These Two Strands.

The Superstition Respecting Power And Office Is Going To The Ground. The Stream Of Human Affairs Flows Its Own Way, And Is Very Little Affected By The Activity Of Legislators. What Great Masses Of Men Wish Done, Will Be Done; And They Do Not Wish It For A Freak, But Because It Is Their State And Natural End.

The Finest And Noblest Ground On Which People Can Live Is Truth; The Real With The Real; A Ground On Which Nothing Is Assumed.

Love Is Like A Hunter, Who Cares Not For The Game When Once Caught, Which He May Have Pursued With The Most Intense And Breathless Eagerness. Love Is Strongest In Pursuit; Friendship In Possession.

Pain, Indolence, Sterility, Endless Ennui Have Also Their Lesson For You, If You Are Great.

Every Man Is A Quotation From All His Ancestors.

It Requires A Great Deal Of Boldness And A Great Deal Of Caution To Make A Great Fortune, And When You Have It, It Requires Ten Times As Much Skill To Keep It.

I Remember The Thought Which Occurred To Me When Some Ingenious And Spiritual Foreigners Came To America, Was, Have You Been Victimized In Being Brought Hither?--or, Prior To That, Answer Me This, "are You Victimizable?

Every Rational Creature Has All Nature For His Dowry And Estate. It Is His, If He Will. He May Divest Himself Of It; He May Creepinto A Corner, And Abdicate His Kingdom, As Most Men Do, But He Is Entitled To The World By His Constitution.

When Half-gods Go The Gods Arrive.

We Love Force And We Care Very Little How It Is Exhibited.

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

In The Learned Journal, In The Influential Newspaper, I Discern No Form; Only Some Irresponsible Shadow; Oftener Some Monied Corporation, Or Some Dangler, Who Hopes, In The Mask And Robes Of His Paragraph, To Pass For Somebody. But Through Every Clause And Part Of Speech Of The Right Book I Meet The Eyes Of The Most Determined Men; His Force And Terror Inundate Every Word: The Commas And Dashes Are Alive; So That The Writing Is Athletic And Nimble,--can Go Far And Live Long.

It Is Much Better To Learn The Elements Of Geology, Of Botany, Or Ornithology And Astronomy By Word Of Mouth From A Companion Than Dully From A Book.

The Multitude Of False Churches Accredits The True Religion.

Every Revolution Was First A Thought In One Man's Mind; And When The Same Thought Occurs To Another Man, It Is The Key To That Era.

And What Is Genius But Finer Love, A Love Impersonal, A Love Of The Flower And Perfection Of Things, And A Desire To Draw A New Picture Or Copy Of The Same? It Looks To The Cause And Life: It Proceeds From Within Outward, Whilst Talent Goes From Without Inward.

Art Is Evidence Of Our Most Creative Moment.

That Which We Call Character Is A Reserved Force Which Acts Directly By Presence, And Without Means. It Is Conceived Of As A Certain Undemonstrable Force, A Familiar Or Genius, By Whose Impulses The Man Is Guided, But Whose Counsels He Cannot Impart.

There Are Eyes, To Be Sure, That Give No More Admission Into The Man Than Blueberries.

The Finished Man Of The World Must Eat Of Every Apple Once.

There Is Hope In Extravagance, There Is None In Routine.

If The Tongue Had Not Been Framed For Articulation, Man Would Still Be A Beast In The Forest.

Men Have Looked Away From Themselves And At Things So Long That They Have Come To Esteem The Religious, Learned And Civil Institutions As Guards Of Property, And They Deprecate Assaults On These, Because They Feel Them To Be Assaults On Property. They Measure Their Esteem Of Each Other By What Each Has, And Not By What Each Is.

Every Man Supposes Himself Not To Be Fully Understood; And If There Is Any Truth In Him, If He Rests At Last On The Divine Soul, I See Not How It Can Be Otherwise. The Last Chamber, The Last Closet, He Must Feel, Was Never Opened; There Is Always A Residuum Unknown, Unanalyzable. That Is, Every Man Believes That He Has A Greater Possibility.

Ah Fate, Cannot A Man Be Wise Without A Beard? East, West, From Beer To Dan, Say, Was It Never Heard That Wisdom Might In Youth Be Gotten, Or Wit Be Ripe Before 't Was Rotten?

The History Of The Genesis Or The Old Mythology Repeats Itself In The Experience Of Every Child. He Too Is A Demon Or God Thrown Into A Particular Chaos, Where He Strives Ever To Lead Things From Disorder Into Order.

I Suppose You Could Never Explain To The Most Ingenous Molusk That Such A Creature As A Whale Existed.

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

A Sage Is The Instructor Of A Hundred Ages.

But Lest I Should Mislead Any When I Have My Own Head And Obey My Whims, Let Me Remind The Reader That I Am Only An Experimenter.do Not Set The Least Value On What I Do, Or The Least Discredit On What I Do Not, As If I Pretended To Settle Any Thing As True Or False. I Unsettle All Things. No Facts Are To Me Sacred; None Are Profane; I Simply Experiment, An Endless Seeker With No Past At My Back.

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

The Ancestor Of Every Action Is A Thought.

Positive Thinking

The Difference Between The Actual And The Ideal Force Of Man Is Happily Figured In By The Schoolmen, In Saying, That The Knowledgeof Man Is An Evening Knowledge, Vespertina Cognitio, But That Of God Is A Morning Knowledge, Matutina Cognitio.

Man Is The Broken Giant, And In All His Weakness Both His Body And His Mind Are Invigorated By Habits Of Conversation With Nature.

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

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

Heaven Sometimes Hedges A Rare Character About With Ungainliness And Odium, As The Burr That Protects The Fruit.

The World Is The Ring Of His Spells, And The Play Of His Miracles.

Who Does Not Sometimes Envy The Good And The Brave, Who Are No More To Suffer From The Tumults Of The Natural World, And Await With Curious Complacency The Speedy Term Of His Own Conversation With Finite Nature?

The Forest Waves, The Morning Breaks, The Pastures Sleep, Ripple The Lakes, Leaves Twinkle, Flowers Like Persons Be And Life Pulsates In Rock Or Tree.

It Is Defeat Which Educates Us.

Moral Qualities Rule The World, But At Short Distances The Senses Are Despotic.

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

The True Scholar Grudges Every Opportunity Of Action Passed, By, As A Loss Of Power.

Every Thought Is Public, Every Nook Is Wide; Thy Gossips Spread Each Whisper, And The Gods From Side To Side.

The Unbelief Of The Age Is Attested By The Loud Condemnation Of Trifles.

Only To Youth Will Spring Be Spring.

Therefore We Value The Poet. All The Argument And All The Wisdom Is Not In The Encyclopedia, Or The Treatise On Metaphysics, Or The Body Of Divinity, But In The Sonnet Or The Play.

His Heart Was As Great As The World, But There Was No Room In It To Hold The Memory Of A Wrong.

We Love Flattery, Even Though We Are Not Deceived By It, Because It Shows That We Are Of Importance Enough To Be Courted.

Knowledge Is The Antidote To Fear. [especially As Fear Often Stands For False Evidence Appearing Real!]

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

A Woman Should Always Challenge Our Respect, And Never Move Our Compassion.

Government Has Come To Be A Trade, And Is Managed Solely On Commercial Principles. A Man Plunges Into Politics To Make His Fortune, And Only Cares That The World Shall Last His Days.

Our Best Thoughts Come From Others.

My Garden Is A Forest Ledge Which Older Forest S Bound; The Banks Slope Down To The Blue Lake-edge, Then Plunge To Depths Profound!

God Builds His Temple In The Heart On The Ruins Of Churches And Religions.

Why Should We Grope Among The Dry Bones Of The Past, Or Put The Living Generation Into Masquerade Out Of Its Faded Wardrobe?

Women Stand Related To Beautiful Nature Around Us, And The Enamoured Youth Mixes Their Form With Moon And Stars, With Woods And Waters, And The Pomp Of Summer. They Heal Us Of Awkwardness By Their Words And Looks. We Observe Their Intellectual Influence On The Most Serious Student. They Refine And Clear His Mind: Teach Him To Put A Pleasing Method Into What Is Dry And Difficult.

Generalization Is Always A New Influx Of Divinity Into The Mind. Hence The Thrill That Attends It.

It Is Said That When Manners Are Licentious, A Revolution Is Always Near: The Virtue Of Woman Being The Main Girth And Bandage Ofsociety; Because A Man Will Not Lay Up An Estate For Children Any Longer Than Whilst He Believes Them To Be His Own.

The Most Dangerous Thing Is Illusion.

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.

An Institution Is The Lengthened Shadow Of One Man; As, Monachism Of The Hermit Anthony, The Reformation Of Luther, Quakerism Of Fox, Methodism Of Wesley, Abolition Of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton Called "the Height Of Rome;" And All History Resolves Itself Easily Into The Biography Of A Few Stout And Earnest Persons. Let A Man, Then, Know His Worth, And Keep Things Under His Feet.

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.

I Look On Trade And Every Mechanical Craft As Education Also. But Let Me Discriminate What Is Precious Herein. There Is In Each Ofthese Works An Act Of Invention, An Intellectual Step, Or Short Series Of Steps Taken; That Act Or Step Is The Spiritual Act; All The Rest Is Mere Repetition Of The Same A Thousand Times.

You Need Not Fear To Handle The Truth Roughly. She Is No Invalid.

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

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

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.

America Means Opportunity, Freedom, Power.

If You Believe In The Soul, Do Not Clutch At Sensual Sweetness Before It Is Ripe On The Slow Tree Of Cause And Effect.

Wisdom Is Not Found With Those Who Dwell At Their Ease; Rather Nature, When She Adds Brain, Adds Difficulty.

It Is Only When Mind And Character Slumber That The Dress Can Be Seen. If The Intellect Were Always Awake, And Every Noble Sentiment, The Man Might Go In Huckaback Or Mats, And His Dress Would Be Admired And Imitated.

We Learn That God Is; That He Is In Me; And That All Things Are Shadows Of Him.

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

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

The Great Man Is Not Convulsible Or Tormentable; Events Pass Over Him Without Much Impression.

The Shot Heard Round The World.

Revolutionary War

Augusta National

April And Spring

So Far As A Person Thinks; They Are Free.

The Whole Of What We Know Is A System Of Compensation. Every Defect In One Manner Is Made Up In Another. Every Suffering Is Rewarded; Every Sacrifice Is Made Up; Every Debt Is Paid.

Let Us Not Forget The Genial Miraculous Force We Have Known To Proceed From A Book.

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.

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. We Quote Not Only Books And Proverbs, But Arts, Sciences, Religion, Customs, And Laws; Nay, We Quote Temples And Houses, Tables And Chairs, By Imitation.

I Take This Evanescence And Lubricity Of All Objects, Which Lets Them Slip Through Our Fingers Then When We Clutch Hardest, To Be The Most Unhandsome Part Of Our Condition.

Then, Though I Prize My Friends, I Cannot Afford To Talk With Them And Study Their Visions, Lest I Lose My Own. It Would Indeed Give Me A Certain Household Joy To Quit This Lofty Seeking, This Spiritual Astronomy, Or Search Of Stars, And Come Down To Warm Sympathies With You; But Then I Know Well I Shall Mourn Always The Vanishing Of My Mighty Gods.

To Be Great Is To Be Misunderstood.

The Tempered Light Of The Woods Is Like A Perpetual Morning.

Let A Man Learn To Look For The Permanent In The Mutable And Fleeting; Let Him Learn To Bear The Disappearance Of Things He Was Wont To Reverence; Without Losing His Reverence; Let Him Learn That He Is Here, Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon; And That, Though Abyss Open Under Abyss, And Opinion Displace Opinion, All Are At Last Contained In The Eternal Cause.

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

A Man Is A Little Thing Whilst He Works By And For Himself, But, When He Gives Voice To The Rules Of Love And Justice, Is Godlike, His Word Is Current In All Countries; And All Men, Though His Enemies, Are Made His Friends And Obey It As Their Own.

All Men Are Poets At Heart.

Man Moves In All Modes, By Legs Of Horses, By Wings Of Winds, By Steam, By Gas Of Balloon, By Electricity, And Stands On Tiptoe Threatening To Hunt The Eagle In His Own Element.

Of All Debts, Men Are Least Willing To Pay Their Taxes; What A Satire This Is On Government.

Travel Is A Fools Paradise.

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?

Find The Journey's End In Every Step.

Great Geniuses Have The Shortest Biographies.

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.

Plato Is Philosophy, And Philosophy, Plato,--at Once The Glory And The Shame Of Mankind, Since Neither Saxon Nor Roman Have Availed To Add Any Idea To His Categories.

Cut These Words And They Would Bleed; They Are Vascular And Alive.

The Most Active Lives Have So Much Routine As To Preclude Progress Almost Equally With The Most Inactive.

Envy Is The Tax Which All Distinction Must Pay.

The Street Is Full Of Humiliations To The Proud.

The Writer Is An Explorer. Every Step Is An Advance Into A New Land.

So Shall We Come To Look At The World With New Eyes. It Shall Answer The Endless Inquiry Of The Intellect, — What Is Truth? And Of The Affections, — What Is Good? By Yielding Itself Passive To The Educated Will. ... Build, Therefore, Your Own World. As Fast As You Conform Your Life To The Pure Idea In Your Mind, That Will Unfold Its Great Proportions. A Correspondent Revolution In Things Will Attend The Influx Of The Spirit.

Sleep Takes Off The Costume Of Circumstance, Arms Us With Terrible Freedom, So That Every Will Rushes To Deed. A Skillful Man Reads His Dreams For His Self-knowledge; Yet Not The Details, But The Quality. What Part Does He Play In Them - A Cheerful, Manly Part, Or A Poor, Drivelling Part? However Monstrous And Grotesque Their Apparitions, They Have A Substantial Truth.

Cities Give Not The Human Senses Room Enough. We Go Out Daily And Nightly To Feed The Eyes On The Horizon, And Require So Much Scope, Just As We Need Water For Our Bath.

The Force Of Character Is Cumulative.

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

When Life Has Been Well Spent, Age Is A Loss Of What It Can Well Spare,--muscular Strength, Organic Instincts, Gross Bulk, And Works That Belong To These. But The Central Wisdom, Which Was Old In Infancy, Is Young In Fourscore Years, And Dropping Off Obstructions, Leaves In Happy Subjects The Mind Purified And Wise.

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.

Our Condition As Men Is Risky And Ticklish Enough. One Can Not Be Sure Of Himself And His Fortune An Hour, But He May Be Whisked Off Into Some Pitiable Or Ridiculous Plight.

Solitude Is Impractical, And Society Fatal. We Must Keep Our Head In The One And Our Hands In The Other. The Conditions Are Met, If We Keep Our Independence, Yet Do Not Lose Our Sympathy.

How Much We Forgive To Those Who Yield Us The Rare Spectacle Of Heroic Manners! We Will Pardon Them The Want Of Books, Or Arts, And Even Of Gentler Virtues. How Tenaciously We Remember Them!

But, If We Explore The Literature Of Heroism, We Shall Quickly Come To Plutarch, Who Is Its Doctor And Historian. To Him We Owe The Brasidas, The Dion, The Epaminodas, The Scipio Of Old, And I Must Think We Are More Deeply Indebted To Him Than To All The Ancient Writers. Each Of His "lives" Is A Refutation To The Despondency And Cowardice Of Our Religious And Political Theorists. A Wild Courage, A Stoicism Not Of The Schools, But Of The Blood, Shines In Every Anecdote, And Had Given That Book Immense Fame.

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

Conformity Is The Ape Of Harmony.

To This Military Attitude Of The Soul We Give The Name Of Heroism... It Is A Self-trust Which Slights The Restraints Of Prudence, In The Plenitude Of Its Energy And Power To Repair The Harms It May Suffer. The Hero Is A Mind Of Such Balance That No Disturbances Can Shake His Will.

The World Belongs To The Energetic.

The Forest Is My Loyal Friend A Delphic Shrine To Me.

A Sublime Hope Cheers Ever The Faithful Heart, That Elsewhere, In Other Regions Of The Universal Powers, Souls Are Now Acting, Enduring And Daring, Which Can Love Us, And Which We Can Love.

The Word Liberty In The Mouth Of Mr. Webster Sounds Like The Word Love In The Mouth Of A Courtesan.

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

Judge Of Your Natural Character By What You Do In Your Dreams.

We Live In A New And Exceptional Age. America Is Another Word For Opportunity. Our Whole History Appears Like A Last Effort Of The Divine Providence In Behalf Of The Human Race; And A Literal, Slavish Following Of Precedents, As By A Justice Of The Peace, Is Not For Those Who At This Hour Lead The American Civilization.

In Dreams We Are True Poets; We Create The Persons Of The Drama; We Give Them Appropriate Figures Faces, Costumes; They Are Perfect In Their Organs, Attitudes, Manners; Moreover They Speak After Their Own Characters, Not Ours; And We Listen With Surprise To What They Say.

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.

He Decided To Give Up His Large Ambition Of Knowledge And Action For Any Narrow Craft Or Profession, Aiming At A Much More Comprehensive Calling, The Art Of Living.

I Am Old, Yet I Look At Wise Men And See That I Am Very Young. I Look Over Those Stars Yonder, And Into The Myriads Of The Aspirant And Ordered Souls, And See I Am A Stranger And A Youth And Have Yet My Spurs To Win. Too Ridiculous Are These Airs Of Age.

Courage Is Temperamental, Scientific, Ideal.

A Moment Is A Concentrated Eternity.

The Powers Of The Soul Are Commensurate With Its Needs.

Allow Yourself To Trust Joy And Embrace It. You Will Find You Dance With Everything.

It Must Be That When God Speaketh, He Should Communicate, Not One Thing, But All Things; Should Fill The World With His Voice; Should Scatter Forth Light, Nature, Time, Souls, From The Centre Of The Present Thought; And New Date And New Create The Whole.whenever A Mind Is Simple And Receives A Divine Wisdom, Old Things Pass Away, - Means, Teachers, Texts, Temples Fall; It Lives Now, And Absorbs Past And Future Into The Present Hour. All Things Are Made Sacred By Relation To It,-one As Much As Another. All Things Are Disolved To Ther Center By Thier Cause.

Dear To Us Are Those Who Love Us... But Dearer Are Those Who Reject Us As Unworthy, For They Add Another Life; They Build A Heaven Before Us Whereof We Had Not Dreamed, And Thereby Supply To Us New Powers Out Of The Recesses Of The Spirit, And Urge Us To New And Unattempted Performances.

Explore, And Explore. Be Neither Chided Nor Flattered Out Of Your Position Of Perpetual Inquiry. Neither Dogmatize Or Accept Another's Dogmatism.

We Do Not Yet Possess Ourselves, And We Know At The Same Time That We Are Much More.

If You Act, You Show Character; If You Sit Still, You Show It; If You Sleep You Show It.

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

The People Know That They Need In Their Representative Much More Than Talent, Namely, The Power To Make His Talent Trusted.

It Does Not Hurt Weak Eyes To Look Into Beautiful Eyes Never So Long.

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

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.

Let Not The Emphasis Of Hospitality Lie In Bed And Board; But Let Truth And Love And Honor And Courtesy Flow In All Thy Deeds.

In Our Fine Arts, Not Imitation, But Creation Is The Aim... The Details, The Prose Of Nature, He Should Omit, And Give Us Only The Spirit And Splendour.

The Mystic Must Be Steadily Told,-all That You Say Is Just As True Without The Tedious Use Of That Symbol As With It. Let Us Have A Little Algebra, Instead Of This Trite Rhetoric,-universal Signs, Instead Of These Village Symbols,-and We Shall Both Be Gainers. The History Of Hierarchies Seems To Show That All Religious Error Consisted In Making The Symbol Too Stark And Solid, And Was At Last Nothing But An Excess Of The Organ Of Language.

Nature Is Saturated With Deity.

Who Shall Forbid A Wise Skepticism, Seeing That There Is No Practical Question On Which Anything More Than An Approximate Solution Can Be Had?

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.

It Is A Capital Blunder; As You Discover, When Another Man Recites His Charities.

The World Is All Outside, It Has No Inside.

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

The Walls Of Rude Minds Are Scrawled All Over With Facts, With Thoughts. They Shall One Day Bring A Lantern And Read The Inscriptions.

There Are Always Two Parties; The Establishment And The Movement.

Some Thoughts Always Find Us Young, And Keep Us So. Such A Thought Is The Love Of The Universal And Eternal Beauty.

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.

In My Dealing With My Child, My Latin And Greek, My Accomplishments And My Money Stead Me Nothing; But As Much Soul As I Have Avails. If I Am Wilful, He Sets His Will Against Mine, One For One, And Leaves Me, If I Please, The Degradation Of Beating Him By My Superiority Of Strength. But If I Renounce My Will, And Act For The Soul, Setting That Up As Umpire Between Us Two, Out Of His Young Eyes Looks The Same Soul; He Reveres And Loves With Me.

A Friend Is A Person Who Goes Around Saying Nice Things About You Behind Your Back.

Cute Friendship

Behind Your Back

Everything Runs To Excess; Every Good Quality Is Noxious If Unmixed.

We Sometimes Observe That Spoiled Children Contract A Habit Of Annoying Quite Wantonly Those Who Have Charge Of Them, And Seem Tomeasure Their Own Sense Of Well-being, Not By What They Do, But By The Degree Of Reaction They Can Cause. It Is Vain To Get Rid Of Them By Not Minding Them: If Purring And Humming Is Not Noticed, They Squeal And Screech; Then If You Chide And Console Them, They Find The Experiment Succeeds, And They Begin Again. The Child Will Sit In Your Arms Contented If You Do Nothing. If You Take A Book And Read, He Commences Hostile Operations.

There Are Geniuses In Trade As Well As In War, Or The State, Or Letters; And The Reason Why This Or That Man Is Fortunate Is Not To Be Told. It Lies In The Man: That Is All Anybody Can Tell You About It.

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

A Great Man Will Find A Great Subject, Or Which Is The Same Thing, Make Any Subject Great.

Beware Of Too Much Good Staying In Your Hand. It Will Fast Corrupt And Worm Worms. Pay It Away Quickly In Some Sort.

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Daniel Ellsberg

Richard Nelson Bolles

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