Background Image

...

Our Age Is Retrospective. It Builds The Sepulchres Of The Fathers. It Writes Biographies, Histories And Criticism.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Our Age Is Retrospective.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Our Age Is Retrospective. It Builds The Sepulchres Of The Fathers. It Writes Biographies, Histories And Criticism.

Views: 10

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

Give No Bounties: Make Equal Laws: Secure Life And Prosperity And You Need Not Give Alms.

Self Sacrifice Is The Real Miracle Out Of Which All The Reported Miracles Grow.

The Aristocrat Is The Democrat Ripe, And Gone To Seed.

Every Ship Is A Romantic Object, Except That We Sail In. Embark, And The Romance Quits Our Vessel, And Hangs On Every Other Sail In The Horizon.

Skepticism Is Unbelief In Cause And Effect. A Man Does Not See, That, As He Eats, So He Thinks: As He Deals, So He Is, And So He Appears; He Does Not See That His Son Is The Son Of His Thoughts And Of His Actions; That Fortunes Are Not Exceptions But Fruits; That Relation And Connection Are Not Somewhere And Sometimes, But Everywhere And Always; No Miscellany, No Exemption, No Anomaly,--but Method, And An Even Web; And What Comes Out, That Was Put In.

God Enters By A Private Door Into Every Individual.

Be Lord Of A Day, Through Wisdom And Justice, And You Can Put Up Your History Books.

The Permanence Of All Books Is Fixed By No Effort Friendly Or Hostile, But By Their Own Specific Gravity, Or The Intrinsic Importance Of Their Contents To The Constant Mind Of Man.

Be An Opener Of Doors

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

Science, Nature,-o, I've Yearned To Open Some Page.

The Subject Is Said To Have The Property Of Making Dull Men Eloquent.

There Is No Den In The Wide World To Hide A Rogue.

What Has Been Done In The World - The Works Of Genius - Cost Nothing. There Is No Painful Effort, But It Is The Spontaneous Flowing Of The Thought. Shakespeare Made His Hamlet As A Bird Weaves Its Nest.

The Sensual Man Conforms Thoughts To Things; The Poet Conforms Things To His Thoughts.

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.

There Are Men Whose Manners Have The Same Essential Splendor As The Simple And Awful Sculpture On The Friezes Of The Parthenon, And The Remains Of The Earliest Greek Art.

In The Right Hands, Literature Is Not Resorted To As A Consolation, And By The Broken And Decayed, But As A Decalogue.

Every Thing Admonishes Us How Needlessly Long Life Is.

Tis The Old Secret Of The Gods That They Come In Low Disguises.

Do What You Know And Perception Is Converted Into Character.

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

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

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

The Etymologist Finds The Deadest Word To Have Been Once A Brilliant Picture. Language Is Fossil Poetry. As The Limestone Of The Continent Consists Of Infinite Masses Of The Shells Of Animalcules, So Language Is Made Up Of Images Or Tropes, Which Now, In Their Secondary Use, Have Long Ceased To Remind Us Of Their Poetic Origin.

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

Every Hero Becomes A Bore At Last.

I Am Grown By Sympathy A Little Eager And Sentimental, But Leave Me Alone, And I Should Relish Every Hour And What It Brought Me, The Pot-luck Of The Day, As Heartily As The Oldest Gossip In The Bar-room.

There Is A Tendency In Things To Right Themselves, And The War Or Revolution Or Bankruptcy That Shatters Rotten System, Allows Things To Take A New And Natural Order.

We Have A Great Deal More Kindness Than Is Ever Spoken. (despite) All The Selfishness That Chills Like East Winds The World, The Whole Human Family Is Bathed With An Element Of Love Like A Fine Ether... The Effect Of The Indulgence Of This Human Affection Is A Certain Cordial Exhilaration.

Religion Is To Do Right. It Is To Love, It Is To Serve, It Is To Think, It Is To Be Humble.

Pride Can Go Without Domestics, Without Fine Clothes, Can Live In A House With Two Rooms, Can Eat Potato, Purslain, Beans, Lyed Corn, Can Work On The Soil, Can Travel Afoot, Can Talk With Poor Men, Or Sit Silent Well Contented With Fine Saloons. But Vanity Costs Money, Labor, Horses, Men, Women, Health And Peace, And Is Still Nothing At Last; A Long Way Leading Nowhere.--only One Drawback; Proud People Are Intolerably Selfish, And The Vain Are Gentle And Giving.

We Live In Succession, In Division, In Parts, In Particles. Meantime Within Man Is The Soul Of The Whole; The Wise Silence; The Universal Beauty, To Which Every Part And Particle Is Equally Related; The Eternal One.

Riding A Horse Is Not A Gentle Hobby, To Be Picked Up And Laid Down Like A Game Of Solitaire. It Is A Grand Passion. It Seizes A Person Whole And Once It Has Done So, He/she Will Have To Accept That His Life Will Be Radically Changed.

Only To Youth Will Spring Be Spring.

The Finest Wits Have Their Sediment.

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 Power Of Love, As The Basis Of A State, Has Never Been Tried.

It Now Appears That The Negro Race Is, More Than Any Other, Susceptible Of Rapid Civilization. The Emancipation Is Observed, In The Islands, To Have Wrought For The Negro A Benefit As Sudden As When A Thermometer Is Brought Out Of The Shade Into The Sun. It Has Given Him Eyes And Ears.

Any Relation To The Land, The Habit Of Tilling It, Or Mining It, Or Even Hunting On It, Generates The Feeling Of Patriotism. He Who Keeps Shop On It, Or He Who Merely Uses It As A Support To His Desk And Ledger, Or To His Manufactory, Values It Less.

We Boast Our Emancipation From Many Superstitions; But If We Have Broken Any Idols, It Is Through A Transfer Of Idolatry.

The Way Of Providence Is A Little Rude. The Habit Of Snake And Spider, The Snap Of The Tiger And Other Leapers And Bloody Jumpers, The Crackle Of The Bones Of His Prey In The Coil Of The Anaconda-these Are In The System, And Our Habits Are Like Theirs.

The End Of Being Is To Know; And If You Say, The End Of Knowledge Is Action,-why, Yes, But The End Of That Action Again, Is Knowledge.

What You Are Comes To You.

Law Of Attraction

Earth's A Howling Wilderness, Truculent With Fraud And Force.

This One Fact The World Hates; That The Soul Becomes; For That Forever Degrades The Past, Turns All Riches To Poverty, All Reputation To A Shame, Confounds The Saint With The Rogue, Shoves Jesus And Judas Equally Aside.

If I Could Put My Hand On The North Star, Would It Be As Beautiful? The Sea Is Lovely, But When We Bathe In It The Beauty Forsakesall The Near Water. For The Imagination And Senses Cannot Be Gratified At The Same Time.

Spartans, Stoics, Heroes, Saints And Gods Use Short And Positive Speech.

Difficulties Exist To Be Surmounted.

Hence, The Less Government We Have, The Better,--the Fewer Laws, And The Less Confided Power. The Antidote To This Abuse Of Formalgovernment, Is, The Influence Of Private Character, The Growth Of The Individual; The Appearance Of The Principal To Supersede The Proxy; The Appearance Of The Wise Man, Of Whom The Existing Government, Is, It Must Be Owned, But A Shabby Imitation.

A Man Cannot Speak But He Judges Himself. With His Will Or Against His Will He Draws His Portrait To The Eye Of His Companions By Every Word. Every Opinion Reacts On Him Who Utters It. It Is A Threadball Thrown At A Mark, But The Other End Remains On The Thrower

A Man Builds A Fine House; And Now He Has A Master, And A Task For Life.

Time Dissipates To Shining Ether The Solid Angularity Of Facts.

A Human Being Should Beware How He Laughs, For Then He Shows All His Faults.

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

Manners Require Time, And Nothing Is More Vulgar Than Haste.

The Believing We Do Something When We Do Nothing Is The First Illusion Of Tobacco.

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

Insist On Yourself; Never Imitate. Your Own Gift You Can Offer With The Cumulative Force Of A Whole Life's Cultivation, But Of The Adopted Talent Of Another, You Have Only An Extemporaneous, Half Possession.

The Love Of Novels Is The Preference Of Sentiment To The Senses.

A Scholar Does Not Wish To Be Always Pumping His Brains; He Wants Gossips.

The Great Will Not Condescend To Take Anything Seriously.

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

But Every Jet Of Chaos Which Threatens To Exterminate Us Is Convertible By Intellect Into Wholesome Force. Fate Is Unpenetrated Causes.

We Are Made Aware That Magnitude Of Material Things Is Relative, And All Objects Shrink And Expand To Serve The Passion Of The Poet. Thus, In His Sonnets, The Lays Of Birds, The Scents And Dyes Of Flowers, He Finds To Be The Shadow Of His Beloved; Time, Which Keeps Her From Him, Is His Chest; The Suspicion She Has Awakened, Is Her Ornament

We Cannot Describe The Natural History Of The Soul, But We Know That It Is Divine. All Things Are Known To The Soul. It Is Not To Be Surprised By Any Communication. Nothing Can Be Greater Than It, Let Those Fear And Those Fawn Who Will. The Soul Is In Her Native Realm; And It Is Wider Than Space, Older Than Time, Wide As Hope, Rich As Love. Pusillanimity And Fear She Refuses With A Beautiful Scorn; They Are Not For Her Who Putteth On Her Coronation Robes, And Goes Out Through Universal Love To Universal Power.

The Divine Gift Is Ever The Instant Life, Which Receives And Uses And Creates, And Can Well Bury The Old In The Omnipotency With Which Nature Decomposes All Her Harvest For Recomposition.

We Flee Away From Cities, But We Bring The Best Of Cities, These Learned Classifiers, Men Knowing What They Seek, Armed Eyes Of Experts.

The Characteristic Of Genuine Heroism Is Its Persistency. All Men Have Wandering Impulses, Fits And Starts Of Generosity. But When You Have Resolved To Be Great, Abide By Yourself, And Do Not Weakly Try To Reconcile Yourself With The World. The Heroic Cannot Be The Common, Nor The Common The Heroic.

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?

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.

The New Statement Will Comprise The Skepticisms, As Well As The Faiths Of Society, And Out Of Unbeliefs A Creed Shall Be Formed. For, Skepticisms Are Not Gratuitous Or Lawless, But Are Limitations Of The Affirmative Statement, And The New Philosophy Must Take Them In, And Make Affirmations Outside Of Them, Just As Much As Must Include The Oldest Beliefs.

Books Take Their Place According To Their Specific Gravity As Surely As Potatoes In A Tub.

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

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

A Man Makes Inferiors His Superiors By Heat; Self Control Is The Rule. Anger Is An Uncontrollable Feeling That Betrays What You Are When You Are Not Yourself. Anger Is That Powerful Internal Force That Blows Out The Light Of Reason. Know This To Be The Enemy: It Is Anger, Born Of Desire.

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

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity. All Men, All Things, The State, The Church, Yea The Friends Of The Heart Are Phantasms And Unreal Beside The Sanctuary Of The Heart. With So Much Awe, With So Much Fear, Let It Be Respected.

God Evidently Does Not Intend Us All To Be Rich, Or Powerful Or Great, But He Does Intend Us All To Be Friends.

I See The Spectacle Of Morning From The Hilltop Over Against My House, From Daybreak To Sunrise, With Emotions Which An Angel Might Share. The Long Slender Bars Of Cloud Float Like Fishes In The Sea Of Crimson Light. From The Earth, As A Shore, I Look Out Into That Silent Sea. I Seem To Partake Its Rapid Transformations; The Active Enchantment Reaches My Dust, And I Dilate And Conspire With The Morning Wind.

Among The Multitude Of Scholars And Authors, We Feel No Hallowing Presence; We Are Sensible Of A Knack And Skill Rather Than Of Inspiration; They Have A Light, And Know Not Whence It Comes, And Call It Their Own; Their Talent Is Some Exaggerated Faculty, Some Overgrown Member, So That Their Strength Is A Disease.

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.

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

It Makes A Great Difference In The Force Of A Sentence, Whether A Man Be Behind It Or No.

The World Is Upheld By The Veracity Of Good Men: They Make The Earth Wholesome.

We Live In Succession, In Division, In Parts And Particles. Meantime, Within Man, Is The Soul Of The Whole; The Wise Silence; The Universal Beauty To Which Every Part And Particle Is Equally Related; The Eternal One.

Converse With A Mind That Is Grandly Simple, And Literature Looks Like Word-catching.

Under Every Deep A Lower Deep Opens.

The World Exists For The Education Of Each Man.

The Great Object Of Education Should Be Commensurate With The Object Of Life. It Should Be A Moral One; To Teach Self-trust: To Inspire The Youthful Man With An Interest In Himself; With A Curiosity Touching His Own Nature; To Acquaint Him With The Resources Of His Mind, And To Teach Him That There Is All His Strength.

A Man Should Carry Nature In His Head.

Our Distrust Is Very Expensive.

Instead Of Feeling A Poverty When We Encounter A Great Man, Let Us Treat The New Comer Like A Travelling Geologist, Who Passes Through Our Estate, And Shows Us Good Slate, Or Limestone, Or Anthracite, In Our Brush Pasture.

There Are Three Wants Which Never Can Be Satisfied: That Of The Rich, Who Wants Something More; That Of The Sick, Who Wants Something Different; And That Of The Traveler, Who Says Anywhere But Here.

Every Young Man Is Prone To Be Misled By The Suggestions Of His Own Ill-founded Ambition Which He Mistakes For The Promptings Of Asecret Genius, And Thence Dreams Of Unrivaled Greatness.

I Like Man, But Not Men.

People Wish To Be Settled; Only As Far As They Are Unsettled Is There Any Hope For Them.

Beware When The Great God Lets Loose A Thinker On This Planet.

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

As We Are, So We Do; And As We Do, So Is It Done To Us; We Are The Builders Of Our Fortunes.

A Person Seldom Falls Sick But The Bystanders Are Animated With A Faint Hope That He Will Die.

If A Man Owns Land, The Land Owns Him.

When Friendships Are Real, They Are Not Glass Threads Or Frost-work , But The Solidest Thing We Know.

He Who Is Not Everyday Conquering Some Fear Has Not Learned The Secret Of Life.

Power Educates The Potentate.

What The Tender And Poetic Youth Dreams To-day, And Conjures Up With Inarticulate Speech, Is To-morrow The Vociferated Result Of Public Opinion, And The Day After Is The Character Of Nations.

All Mankind Love A Lover.

Presently We Pass To Some Other Object Which Rounds Itself Into A Whole As Did The First; For Example, A Well-laid Garden; And Nothing Seems Worth Doing But The Laying~out Of Gardens.

The First Questions Are Always To Be Asked, And The Wisest Doctor Is Gravelled By The Inquisitiveness Of A Child.

The Possibility Of Interpretation Lies In The Identity Of The Observer With The Observed. Each Material Thing Has Its Celestial Side; Has Its Translation, Through Humanity, Into The Spiritual And Necessary Sphere, Where It Plays A Part As Indestructible As Any Other.

Music Causes Us To Think Eloquently.

The Idea Of God Ends In A Paltry Methodist Meeting-house.

It Is Not What Talents Or Genius A Man Has, But How He Is To His Talents, That Constitutes Friendship And Character. The Man Thatstands By Himself, The Universe Stands By Him Also.

We Must Be Lovers, And At Once The Impossible Becomes Possible.

Impossible Becomes Possible

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

Look Out Into The July Night, And See The Broad Belt Of Silver Flame Which Flashes Up The Half Of Heaven, Fresh And Delicate As The Bonfires Of The Meadow-flies. Yet The Powers Of Numbers Cannot Compute Its Enormous Age,—lasting As Space And Time,—embosomed In Time And Space.

Live, Let Live, And Help Live

I Will Do Strongly Before The Sun And Moon Whatever Inly Rejoices Me And The Heart Apoints.

If You Will Not Lend Me The Money, How Can I Pay You?

Men Are Better Than This Theology.

Life Is To Be Lived, Not Controlled.

In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

We Are Ashamed Of Our Thoughts And Often See Them Brought Forth By Others.

The Shot Heard Round The World.

Revolutionary War

Augusta National

April And Spring

The House ...she Lays Her Beams In Music, In Music Everyone, To The Cadence Of The Whirling World Which Dances Around The Sun- That So They Shall Not Be Displaced By Lapses Or By Wars, But For The Love Of Happy Souls Outlive The Newest Stars.

Difference Of Opinion Is The One Crime Which Kings Never Forgive.

Shallow Men Believe In Luck.

The Lessons Of Science Should Be Experimental Also. The Sight Of A Planet Through A Telescope Is Worth All The Course On Astronomy; The Shock Of The Electric Spark In The Elbow Outvalues All Theories; The Taste Of The Nitrous Oxide, The Firing Of An Artificial Volcano, Are Better Than Volumes Of Chemistry.

Physical Force Has No Value, Where There Is Nothing Else. Snow In Snow-banks, Fire In Volcanoes And Solfataras Is Cheap. The Luxury Of Ice Is In Tropical Countries, And Midsummer Days. The Luxury Of Fire Is, To Have A Little On Our Hearth; And Of Electricity, Not The Volleys Of The Charged Cloud, But The Manageable Stream On The Battery-wires. So Of Spirit, Or Energy; The Rests Or Remains Of It In The Civil And Moral Man, Are Worth All The Cannibals In The Pacific.

Nothing Is More Simple Than Greatness; Indeed, To Be Simple Is To Be Great.

Good Writing Is A Kind Of Skating Which Carries Off The Performer Where He Would Not Go.

To Believe Your Own Thought, To Believe That What Is True For You In Your Private Heart Is True For All Men That Is Genius.

The Virtues Of Society Are The Vices Of The Saints.

All Things Are Flowing, Even Those That Seem Immovable. The Adamant Is Always Passing Into Smoke. The Plants Imbibe The Materialswhich They Want From The Air And The Ground. They Burn, That Is, Exhale And Decompose Their Own Bodies Into The Air And Earth Again. The Animal Burns, Or Undergoes The Like Perpetual Consumption. The Earth Burns, The Mountains Burn And Decompose, Slower, But Incessantly.

Some People Will Tell You There Is A Great Deal Of Poetry And Fine Sentiment In A Chest Of Tea.

Personal Beauty Is Then First Charming And Itself, When It Dissatisfies Us With Any End; When It Becomes A Story Without An End; When It Suggests Gleams And Visions, And Not Earthly Satisfactions; When It Makes The Beholder Feel His Unworthiness; When He Cannot Feel His Right To It, Though He Were Caesar; He Cannot Feel More Right To It Than To The Firmament And The Splendors Of A Sunset.

Coal Is A Portable Climate.

Poverty Demoralizes. A Man In Debt Is So Far A Slave; And Wall-street Thinks It Easy For A Millionaire To Be A Man Of His Word, Aman Of Honor, But, That, In Failing Circumstances, No Man Can Be Relied On To Keep His Integrity.

The Affirmative Of Affirmatives... Is Love.

I Cannot Marry The Facts Of William Shakespeare To His Verse: Other Men Had Led Lives In Some Sort Of Keeping With Their Thought, But This Man Is In Wide Contrast.

Man's Life Is A Progress, Not A Station.

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

There Is No Better Way To Exercise The Imagination Than The Study Of The Law.

The Wise Man Always Throws Himself On The Side Of His Assailants. It Is More His Interest Than It Is Theirs To Find His Weak Point.

The Domestic Man, Who Loves No Music So Well As His Kitchen Clock, And The Airs Which The Logs Sing To Him As They Burn On The Hearth, Has Solaces Which Others Never Dream Of.

Don't Make A Novel To Establish A Principle Of Political Economy. You Will Spoil Both.

Great Hearts Steadily Send Forth The Secret Forces That Incessantly Draw Great Events.

Law Of Attraction

Talent May Frolic And Juggle; Genius Realizes And Adds.

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

The Moment The Doctrine Of The Immortality Is Separately Taught, Man Is Already Fallen. In The Flowing Of Love, In The Adoration Of Humility, There Is No Question Of Continuance. No Inspired Man Ever Asks This Question, Or Condescends To These Evidences. For The Soul Is True To Itself, And The Man In Whom It Is Shed Abroad Cannot Wander From The Present, Which Is Infinite, To A Future Which Would Be Finite.

The Sun Shines And Warms And Lights Us And We Have No Curiosity To Know Why This Is So; But We Ask The Reason Of All Evil, Of Pain, And Hunger, And Mosquitoes And Silly People.

I Find The Englishman To Be Him Of All Men Who Stands Firmest In His Shoes. They Have In Themselves What They Value In Their Horses, Mettle And Bottom.

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

A Strong Person Makes The Law And Custom Null Before His Own Will.

The Blazing Evidence Of Immortality Is Our Dissatisfaction With Any Other Solution.

Every Sweet Has Its Sour; Every Evil Its Good.

Health Is The Condition Of Wisdom, And The Sign Is Cheerfulness, - An Open And Noble Temper.

Language Is Fossil Poetry.

No Man Acquires Property Without Acquiring With It A Little Arithmetic Also.

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.

Every Natural Fact Is A Symbol Of Some Spiritual Fact.

The Picture Waits For My Verdict; It Is Not To Command Me, But I Am To Settle Its Claim To Praise.

We Live Ruins Amid Ruins.

We Must Be Our Own Before We Can Be Another's.

We Do Not Want Actions, But Men; Not A Chemical Drop Of Water, But Rain; The Spirit That Sheds And Showers Actions, Countless, Endless Actions.

It Is The Fine Souls Who Serve Us, And Not What Is Called Fine Society. Fine Society Is Only A Self-protection Against The Vulgarities Of The Street And The Tavern.

The Book, The College, The School Of Art, The Institution Of Any Kind, Stop With Some Past Utterance Of Genius. . . . They Look Backward And Not Forward. But Genius Looks Forward: The Eyes Of Man Are Set In His Forehead, Not In His Hindhead: Man Hopes: Genius Creates. Whatever Talents May Be, If The Man Create Not, The Pure Efflux Of The Deity Is Not His; - Cinders And Smoke There May Be, But Not Yet Flame.

Why Should We Grope Among The Dry Bones Of The Past? The Sun Shines Today Also.

The Manly Part Is To Do With Might And Main What You Can Do.

God Has Delegated Himself To A Million Deputies.

Let Us Draw A Lesson From Nature, Which Always Works By Short Ways. When The Fruit Is Ripe, It Falls.

And Truly It Demands Something God Like In Him Who Has Cast Off The Common Motives Of Humanity, And Has Ventured To Trust Himself For A Taskmaster. High Be His Heart, Faithful His Will, Clear His Sight, That He May In Good Earnest Be Doctrine, Society, Law, To Himself, That A Simple Purpose May Be To Him As Strong As Iron Necessity Is To Others!

Beauty Brings Its Own Fancy Price, For All That A Man Hath Will He Give For His Love.

Besides The General Infusion Of Wit To Heighten Civility, The Direct Splendor Of Intellectual Power Is Ever Welcome In Fine Society, As The Costliest Addition To Its Rule And Its Credit.

Railroad Iron Is A Magician's Rod, In Its Power To Evoke The Sleeping Energies Of Land And Water.

Consideration Is The Soil In Which Wisdom May Be Expected To Grow, And Strength Be Given To Every Up-springing Plant Of Duty.

Good Manners Are Made Up Of Petty Sacrifices.

Nothing Great Ever Happened Without Enthusiasm.

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

There Is Not A Piece Of Science, But Its Flank May Be Turned Tomorrow.

We Boil At Different Degrees.

Being Different

You Think That Your Silence On Certain Topics, Perhaps In The Face Of Injustice, Or Unkindness, Or Mean-spiritedness, Causes Others To Reserve Judgement Of You. Far Otherwise; Your Silence Utters Very Loud: You Have No Oracle To Speak, No Wisdom To Offer, And Your Fellow Men Have Learned That You Cannot Help Them. Doth Not Wisdom Cry, And Understanding Put Forth Her Voice? We Would Be Well To Do Likewise.

A Nation Never Falls But By Suicide.

After You Have Pumped Your Brains For Thoughts And Verses, There Is A Better Poetry Hinted In Whistling A Tune On Your Walk.

Life Is An Ecstasy. Life Is Sweet As Nitrous Oxide.

Nature Avenges Herself Speedily On The Hard Pedantry That Would Chain Her Waves. She Is No Literalist. Every Thing Must Be Taken Genially, And We Must Be At The Top Of Our Condition, To Understand Any Thing Rightly.

The End Of The Human Race Will Be That It Will Eventually Die Of Civilization.

All Men Are Poets At Heart. They Serve Nature For Bread, But Her Loveliness Overcomes Them Sometimes.

But I Shall Hear Without Pain, That I Play The Courtier Very Ill, And Talk Of That Which I Do Not Well Understand.

I Grieve That Grief Can Teach Me Nothing, Nor Carry Me One Step Into Real Nature.

Whatever Limits Us We Call Fate.

Good Thoughts Are No Better Than Good Dreams If You Don't Follow Through.

A Painter Told Me That Nobody Could Draw A Tree Without In Some Sort Becoming A Tree.

Miracle Comes To The Miraculous, Not To The Arithmetician.

Nothing Astonishes Men So Much As Common Sense And Plain Dealing.

Headwinds Are Sore Vexations And The More Passengers The Sorer.

The Highest Revelation Is That God Is In Every Man.

Trust Thyself: Every Heart Vibrates To That Iron String. Accept The Place The Divine Providence Has Found For You, The Society Of Your Contemporaries, The Connection Of Events. Great Men Have Always Done So, And Confided Themselves Childlike To The Genius Of Their Age, Betraying Their Perception That The Absolutely Trustworthy Was Seated At Their Heart, Working Through Their Hands, Predominating In All Their Being.

It Is One Of The Most Beautiful Compensations Of This Life That No Person Can Sincerely Try To Help Another Without Helping Him Or Herself. Serve And You Shall Be Served. If You Love And Serve People, You Cannot, By Any Hiding Or Stratagem, Escape The Remuneration.

The Silence That Accepts Merit As The Most Natural Thing In The World Is The Highest Applause.

Trending Author

William Ellery Channing

Category