Background Image

...

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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Our Debt To Tradition

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

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.

Views: 7

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

Conversation Is An Art In Which A Man Has All Mankind For His Competitors, For It Is That Which All Are Practising Every Day While They Live.

With Most Men, Scarce A Link Of Memory Holds Yesterday And To-day Together.

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

We Fancy Men Are Individuals; So Are Pumpkins; But Every Pumpkin In The Field Goes Through Every Point Of Pumpkin History.

A Man Passes For That He Is Worth. What He Is Engraves Itself On His Face, On His Form, On His Fortunes, In Letters Of Light. Concealment Avails Him Nothing; Boasting Nothing. There Is Confession In The Glances Of Our Eyes; In Our Smiles; In Salutations; And The Grasp Of Hands.

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

Every Book Is A Quotation; And Every House Is A Quotation Out Of All Forests, And Mines, And Stone Quarries; And Every Man Is A Quotation From All His Ancestors.

Give Me Health And A Day, And I Will Make The Pomp Of Emperors Ridiculous.

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

One Of The Benefits Of A College Education Is To Show The Boy Its Little Avail.

Our Thinking Is A Pious Reception.

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

It Is Easy To See That A Greater Self-reliance Must Work A Revolution In All The Offices And Relations Of Men; In Their Religion; In Their Education; In Their Pursuits; Their Modes Of Living; Their Association; In Their Property; In Their Speculative Views.

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

Impossible Becomes Possible

What You Set Your Heart Upon, Surely Shall Be Yours.

Your Work Should Be In Praise Of What You Love.

The Foundation Of Culture, As Of Character, Is At Last The Moral Sentiment.

God Had Infinite Time To Give Us.... He Cut It Up Into A Near Succession Of New Mornings, And, With Each, Therefore, A New Idea, New Inventions, And New Applications.

Difficulties Exist To Be Surmounted.

Every Known Fact In Natural Science Was Divined By The Presentiment Of Somebody, Before It Was Actually Verified.

Native American

The Hero Is A Mind Of Such Balance That No Disturbances Can Shake His Will, But Pleasantly, And, As It Were, Merrily, He Advancesto His Own Music, Alike In Frightful Alarms And In The Tipsy Mirth Of Universal Dissoluteness.

The Wise Skeptic Does Not Teach Doubt But How] To Look For The Permanent In The Mutable And Fleeting.

Each Mind Has Its Own Method. A True Man Never Acquires After College Rules.

That Is Ever The Difference Between The Wise And The Unwise: The Latter Wonders At What Is Unusual; The Wise Man Wonders At The Usual.

To The Attentive Eye, Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty, And In The Same Fields, It Beholds, Every Hour, A Picture Which Was Never Seen Before, And Which Shall Never Be Seen Again.

When I Have Attempted To Join Myself To Others By Services, It Proved An Intellectual Trick,-no More. They Eat Your Service Like Apples, And Leave You Out. But Love Them, And They Feel You, And Delight In You All The Time.

An Action Is The Perfection And Publication Of Thought.

Skepticism Is Slow Suicide.

Intellect Is A Fire; Rash And Pitiless It Melts This Wonderful Bone-house Which Is Called Man. Genius Even, As It Is The Greatestgood, Is The Greatest Harm.

The Delicate Muses Lose Their Head If Their Attention Is Once Diverted. Perhaps If You Were Successful Abroad In Talking And Dealing With Men, You Would Not Come Back To Your Bookshelf And Your Task. When The Spirit Chooses You For Its Scribe To Publish Some Commandment, It Makes You Odious To Men And Men Odious To You, And You Shall Accept That Loathsomeness With Joy. The Moth Must Fly To The Lamp, And You Must Solve Those Questions Though You Die.

We Must Be Very Suspicious Of The Deceptions Of The Element Of Time. It Takes A Good Deal Of Time To Eat Or To Sleep, Or To Earn Ahundred Dollars, And A Very Little Time To Entertain A Hope And An Insight Which Becomes The Light Of Our Life.

Knowledge Is The Only Elegance.

I Am Ashamed To Think How Easily We Capitulate To Badges And Names, To Large Societies And Dead Institutions.

What Is Addressed To Us For Contemplation Does Not Threaten Us, But Makes Us Intellectual Beings.

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

The True Philosopher And The True Poet Are One, And A Beauty, Which Is Truth, And A Truth, Which Is Beauty, Is The Aim Of Both.

No Reason Can Be Asked Or Given Why The Soul Seeks Beauty. Beauty, In Its Largest And Profoundest Sense, Is One Expression For The Universe. God Is The All-fair. Truth, And Goodness, And Beauty, Are But Different Faces Of The Same All.

Different Faces

Meet Your Failure Nobly, And It Will Not Differ From Success.

Every Sweet Has Its Sour; Every Evil Its Good.

Our Statute Is A Currency Which We Stamp With Our Own Portrait.

You May Regret Calamities If You Can Thereby Help The Sufferer, But If You Cannot, Mind Your Own Business.

Mind Your Own Business

Savages Cling To A Local God Of One Tribe Or Town. The Broad Ethics Of Jesus Were Quickly Narrowed To Village Theologies, Which Preach An Election Or Favoritism.

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

Every Sunset Brings The Promise Of A New Dawn

Wherever There Is Power, There Is Age. Don't Be Deceived By Dimples And Curls. I Tell You That Babe Is A Thousand Years Old.

Englands Genius Filled All Measureof Heart And Soul, Of Strength And Pleasure,gave To The Mind Its Emperor,and Life Was Larger Than Before:nor Sequent Centuries Could Hitorbit And Sum Of Shakespeares Wit. The Men Who Lived With Him Becamepoets, For The Air Was Fame.

Do Not Fear To Put Novels Into The Hands Of Young People As An Occasional Holiday Experiment, But Above All, Good Poetry In All Kinds,--epic, Tragedy, Lyric. If We Can Touch The Imagination, We Serve Them; They Will Never Forget It.

Let The Stoics Say What They Please, We Do Not Eat For The Good Of Living, But Because The Meat Is Savory And The Appetite Is Keen.

In Private Places, Among Sordid Objects, An Act Of Truth Or Heroism Seems At Once To Draw To Itself The Sky As Its Temple, The Sun As Its Cradle. Nature Stretches Out Her Arms To Embrace Man, Only Let His Thoughts Be Of Equal Greatness.

The Constructive Intellect [genius] Produces Thoughts, Sentences, Poems, Plans, Designs, Systems. It Is The Generation Of The Mind, The Marriage Of Thought With Nature.

A Gentleman Makes No Noise; A Lady Is Serene.

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

Silence Is A Solvent That Destroys Personality, And Gives Us Leave To Be Great And Universal.

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

How Silent, How Spacious, What Room For All, Yet Without Place To Insert An Atom--in Graceful Succession, In Equal Fullness, In Balanced Beauty, The Dance Of The Hours Goes Forward Still. Like An Odor Of Incense, Like A Strain Of Music, Like A Sleep, It Is Inexact And Boundless. It Will Not Be Dissected, Nor Unraveled, Nor Shown.

I Must Be Myself. I Cannot Break Myself Any Longer For You, Or You. If You Can Love Me For What I Am, We Shall Be The Happier. If You Cannot, I Will Still Seek To Seserve That You Should.

The Longer We Live The More We Must Endure The Elementary Existence Of Men And Women; And Every Brave Heart Must Treat Society Asa Child, And Never Allow It To Dictate.

The Socialism Of Our Day Has Done Good Service In Setting Men To Thinking How Certain Civilizing Benefits, Now Only Enjoyed By Theopulent, Can Be Enjoyed By All.

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

Yet Time And Space Are But Inverse Measures Of The Force Of The Soul. The Spirit Sports With Time.

Travel Is A Fools Paradise.

Of Course You Will Insist On Modesty In The Children, And Respect To Their Teachers, But If The Boy Stops You In Your Speech, Cries Out That You Are Wrong And Sets You Right, Hug Him!

A Man In The View Of Absolute Goodness, Adores, With Total Humility. Every Step Downward, Is A Step Upward. The Man Who Renounceshimself, Comes To Himself.

Though The Wide Universe Is Full Of Good, No Kernel Of Nourishing Corn Can Come To Him But Through His Toil Bestowed On That Plot Of Ground Which Is Given To Him To Till.

In Youth, We Clothe Ourselves With Rainbows, And Go As Brave As The Zodiac.

Life Wastes Itself Whilst We Are Preparing To Live.

Give A Boy Address And Accomplishments And You Give Him The Mastery Of Palaces And Fortunes Where He Goes.

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

He That Can Heroically Endure Adversity Will Bear Prosperity With Equal Greatest Of The Soul; For The Mind That Cannot Be Dejected By The Former Is Not Likely To Be Transported Without The Latter.

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.

Everything That Is Popular, It Has Been Said, Deserves The Attention Of Philosophers: And This Is For The Obvious Reason, That Although It May Not Be Of Any Worth In Itself, Yet It Characterizes The People.

Children And Savages Use Only Nouns Or Names Of Things, Which They Convert Into Verbs, And Apply To Analogous Mental Acts.

As Picture Teaches The Colouring, So Sculpture The Anatomy Of Form.

The Ancients Called Beauty The Flowering Of Virtue.

The Aid We Can Give Each Other Is Only Incidental, Lateral, And Sympathetic.

The Craft With Which The World Is Made Runs Also Into The Mind And Character Of Men. No Man Is Quite Sane; Each Has A Vein Of Folly In His Composition, A Slight Determination Of Blood To The Head, To Make Sure Of Holding Him Hard To Some One Point Which Nature Has Taken To Heart.

I Will Not Live Out Of Me I Will Not See With Others' Eyes My Good Is Good, My Evil Ill I Would Be Free.

We Infer The Spirit Of The Nation In Great Measure From The Language, Which Is A Sort Of Monument, To Which Each Forcible Individual In A Course Of Many Hundred Years Has Contributed A Stone.

Hitch Your Wagon To A Star.

Proverbs Are The Literature Of Reason, Or The Statements Of Absolute Truth, Without Qualification. Like The Sacred Books Of Each Nation, They Are The Sanctuary Of Its Intuitions.

A Feeble Man Can See The Farms That Are Fenced And Tilled, The Houses That Are Built. The Strong Man Sees The Possible Houses And Farms. His Eye Makes Estates As Fast As The Sun Breeds Clouds.

Nobody Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

The German Intellect Wants The French Sprightliness, The Fine Practical Understanding Of The English, And The American Adventure; But It Has A Certain Probity, Which Never Rests In A Superficial Performance, But Asks Steadily, To What End? A German Public Asks For A Controlling Sincerity.

Tis Good-will Makes Intelligence.

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

There Is Also Something Excellent In Every Audience,--the Capacity Of Virtue. They Are Ready To Be Beatified.

The Growth Of The Intellect Is Spontaneous In Every Expansion. The Mind That Grows Could Not Predict The Times, The Means, The Mode Of That Spontaneity. God Enters By A Private Door Into Every Individual.

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

Among The Map Makers Of Each Generation Are The Risk Takers, Those Who See The Opportunities, Seize The Moment And Expand Man's Vision Of The Future

Visions Of The Future

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.

No Law Can Be Sacred To Me But That Of My Nature.

The Clergyman Who Lives In The City May Have Piety, But He Must Have Taste.

We Cannot Forgive Another For Not Being Ourselves.

There Is No Privacy That Cannot Be Penetrated. No Secret Can Be Kept In The Civilized World. Society Is A Masked Ball Where Everyone Hides His Real Character, Then Reveals It By Hiding

The Sky Is The Ultimate Art Gallery Just Above Us.

The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most.

We Estimate The Wisdom Of Nations By Seeing What They Did With Their Surplus Capital.

See Only That Thou Work And Thou Canst Not Escape The Reward.

War, To Sane Men At The Present Day, Begins To Look Like An Epidemic Insanity, Breaking Out Here And There Like The Cholera Or Influenza, Infecting Men's Brains Instead Of Their Bowels.

The Difference Between Talent And Genius Is That Talent Says Things Which He Has Never Heard But Once, And Genius Things Which He Has Never Heard.

And Last Of All, High Over Thought, In The World Of Morals, Fate Appears As Vindicator, Levelling The High, Lifting The Low, Requiring Justice In Man, And Always Striking Soon Or Late When Justice Is Not Done. What Is Useful Will Last, What Is Hurtful Will Sink.

Nature Will Not Be Buddhist: She Resents Generalizing, And Insults The Philosopher In Every Moment With A Million Fresh Particulars.

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

The Kitchen Clock Is More Convenient Than Sidereal Time. We Must Use The Popular Category, As We Do By The Linnæan Classification, For Convenience, And Not As Exact And Final. Otherwise, We Are Presently Confounded, When The Best-settled Traits Of One Race Are Claimed By Some New Ethnologist As Precisely Characteristic Of The Rival Tribe.

Isolation Must Precede True Society.

As Long As Civilization Is Essentially One Of Property, Of Fences, Of Exclusiveness, It Will Be Mocked By Delusions. Our Riches Will Leave Us Sick; There Will Be Bitterness In Our Laughter, And Our Wine Will Burn Our Mouth. Only That Good Profits Which We Can Taste With All Doors Open, And Which Serves All Men.

To Laugh Often And Love Much; To Win The Respect Of Intelligent Persons And The Affection Of Children; To Earn The Approbation Of Honest Critics And Endure The Betrayal Of False Friends; To Appreciate Beauty.

When Believers And Unbelievers Live In The Same Manner - I Distrust The Religion.

We Put Our Love Where We Have Put Our Labor.

Every Body We Know Surrounds Himself With A Fine House, Fine Books, Conservatory, Gardens, Equipage, And All Manner Of Toys, As Screens To Interpose Between Himself And His Guest. Does It Not Seem As If Man Was Of A Very Sly, Elusive Nature, And Dreaded Nothing So Much As A Full Rencontre Front To Front With His Fellow?

Before We Acquire Great Power We Must Acquire Wisdom To Use It Well.

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

Every Evil To Which We Do Not Succumb Is A Benefactor.

If The East Loves Infinity, The West Delights In Boundaries.

The Soul Answers Never By Words, But By The Thing Itself That Is Inquired After.

Wherever A Man Comes, There Comes Revolution. The Old Is For Slaves.

Under Every Deep A Lower Deep Opens.

Stand Guard At The Portal Of Your Mind.

We Must Be Courteous To A Man As We Are To A Picture, Which We Are Willing To Give The Advantage Of A Good Light.

Conservatism Makes No Poetry, Breathes No Prayer, Has No Invention; It Is All Memory. Reform Has No Gratitude, No Prudence, No Husbandry.

Poetry Makes Its Own Pertinence, And A Single Stanza Outweighs A Book Of Prose.

We Live In A System Of Approximations. Every End Is Prospective Of Some Other End, Which Is Also Temporary; A Round And Final Success Nowhere. We Are Encamped In Nature, Not Domesticated.

The Rich Mind Lies In The Sun And Sleeps, And Is Nature.

The Most Tedious Of All Discourses Are On The Subject Of The Supreme Being.

The Torments Of Martyrdom Are Probably Most Keenly Felt By The Bystanders.

Let Us Leave Hurry To Slaves.

The Hero Is Not Fed On Sweets, Daily His Own Heart He Eats; Chambers Of The Great Are Jails, And Head-winds Right For Royal Sails.

Those Who Stay Away From The Election Think That One Vote Will Do No Good. 'tis But One Step More To Think One Vote Will Do No Harm.

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.

Respect The Child. Be Not Too Much His Parent. Trespass Not On His Solitude.

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

Health Is The First Muse, Comprising The Magical Benefits Of Air, Landscape, And Bodily Exercise On The Mind.

Man Is A Shrewd Inventor, And Is Ever Taking The Hint Of A New Machine From His Own Structure, Adapting Some Secret Of His Own Anatomy In Iron, Wood, And Leather, To Some Required Function In The Work Of The World.

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

In Vain Produced, All Rays Return; Evil Will Bless, And Ice Will Burn.

All Ages Of Belief Have Been Great; All Of Unbelief Have Been Mean.

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

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.

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

A Man Should Give Us A Sense Of Mass.

Harmony Of Aim, Not Identity Of Conclusion, Is The Secret Of Sympathetic Life.

That Which We Call Sin In Others Is Experiment For Us.

All Public Facts Are To Be Individualized, All Private Facts Are To Be Generalized.

God Screens Us Evermore From Premature Ideas.

A Strenuous Soul Hates Cheap Success.

Justice Satisfies Everybody, And Justice Alone.

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.

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

In Old Persons, When Thus Fully Expressed, We Often Observe A Fair, Plump, Perennial Waxen Complexion, Which Indicates That All The Ferment Of Earlier Days Has Subsided Into Serenity Of Thought And Behavior.

Senators And Presidents Have Climbed So High With Pain Enough, Not Because They Think The Place Specially Agreeable, But As An Apology For Real Worth, And To Vindicate Their Manhood In Our Eyes. This Conspicuous Chair Is Their Compensation To Themselves For Being Of A Poor, Cold, Hard Nature.

Pretension May Sit Still, But Cannot Act. Pretension Never Feigned An Act Of Real Greatness. Pretension Never Wrote An Iliad, Nordrove Back Xerxes, Nor Christianized The World, Nor Abolished Slavery.

A Man's Fortunes Are The Fruit Of His Character. A Man's Friends Are His Magnetisms.

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

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

Will Is The Measure Of Power. To A Great Genius There Must Be A Great Will. If The Thought Is Not A Lamp To The Will, Does Not Proceed To An Act, The Wise Are Imbecile. He Alone Is Strong And Happy Who Has A Will. The Rest Are Herds. He Uses; They Are Used. He Is Of The Maker; They Are Of The Made. Will Is Always Miraculous, Being The Presence Of God To Men. When It Appears In A Man He Is A Hero, And All Metaphysics Are At Fault.

The Effects Of Opposition Are Wonderful. There Are Men Who Rise Refreshed On Hearing Of A Threat, Men To Whom A Crisis, Which Intimidates And Paralyzes The Majority, Comes As Graceful And Beloved As A Bride!

The Eloquence Of One Stimulates All The Rest, Some Up To The Speaking-point, And All Others To A Degree That Makes Them Good Receivers And Conductors, And They Avenge Themselves For Their Enforced Silence By Increased Loquacity On Their Return.

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

Happy Is He Who Looks Only Into His Work To Know If It Will Succeed, Never Into The Times Or The Public Opinion; And Who Writes From The Love Of Imparting Certain Thoughts And Not From The Necessity Of Sale - Who Writes Always To The Unknown Friend.

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 Orator Is Thereby An Orator That Keeps His Feet Ever On A Fact.

O, When I Am Safe In My Sylvan Home, I Mock At The Pride Of Greece And Rome; And When I Am Stretch'd Beneath The Pines When The Evening Star So Holy Shines, I Laugh At The Lore And Pride Of Man, At The Sophist's Schools, And The Learned Clan; For What Are They All In Their High Conceit, When Man In The Bush With God May Meet?

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

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

The Household Is A School Of Power. There, Within The Door, Learn The Tragi-comedy Of Human Life.

Circles, Like The Soul, Are Neverending And Turn Round And Round Without A Stop.

Make Youself Necessary To Someone.

The World Is Nothing, The Man Is All; In Yourself Is The Law Of All Nature, And You Know Not Yet How A Globule Of Sap Ascends; In Yourself Slumbers The Whole Of Reason; It Is For You To Know All, It Is For You To Dare All.

London Is The Epitome Of Our Times, And The Rome Of To-day.

We Are Too Civil To Books. For A Few Golden Sentences We Will Turn Over And Actually Read A Volume Of Four Or Five Hundred Pages.

The American Who Has Been Confined, In His Own Country, To The Sight Of Buildings Designed After Foreign Models, Is Surprised On Entering York Minster Or St. Peter's At Rome, By The Feeling That These Structures Are Imitations Also,--faint Copies Of An Invisible Archetype.

They Think Him The Best Dressed Man, Whose Dress Is So Fit For His Use That You Cannot Notice Or Remember To Describe It.

God Said, I Am Tired Of Kings, I Suffer Them No More; Up To My Ear This Morning Brings The Outrage Of The Poor.

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

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

The Delicious Faces Of Children, The Beauty Of School-girls, "the Sweet Seriousness Of Sixteen," The Lofty Air Of Well-born, Well-bred Boys, The Passionate Histories In The Looks And Manners Of Youth And Early Manhood, And The Varied Power In All That Well-known Company That Escort Us Through Life,--we Know How These Forms Thrill, Paralyze, Provoke, Inspire, And Enlarge Us.

We Aim Above The Mark To Hit The Mark.

The Youth, Intoxicated With His Admiration Of A Hero, Fails To See, That It Is Only A Projection Of His Own Soul, Which He Admires.

A Right Rule For A Club Would Be, Admit No Man Whose Presence Excludes Any One Topic. It Requires People Who Are Not Surprised Andshocked, Who Do And Let Do, And Let Be, Who Sink Trifles, And Know Solid Values, And Who Take A Great Deal For Granted.

Good As Is Discourse, Silence Is Better And Shames It.

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

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

What We Seek We Shall Find; What We Flee From Flees From Us.

Shallow Men Believe In Luck, Believe In Circumstances: It Was Somebody's Name, Or He Happened To Be There At Right Time, Or It Was So Then, And Another Day It Would Have Been Otherwise. Strong Men Believe In Cause And Effect.

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.

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

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

All The Devils Respect Virtue.

Times Of Heroism Are Generally Times Of Terror, But The Day Never Shines In Which This Element May Not Work.

Words Are Alive. Cut Them And They Bleed.

The Consciousness In Each Man Is A Sliding Scale, Which Identifies Him Now With The First Cause, And Now With The Flesh Of His Body; Life Above Life, In Infinite Degrees.

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.

To Be Rich Is To Have A Ticket Of Admission To The Masterworks And Chief Men Of Each Race. It Is To Have The Sea, By Voyaging; To Visit The Mountains, Niagara, The Nile, The Desert, Rome, Paris, Constantinople: To See Galleries, Libraries, Arsenals, Manufactories.

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

Look Out! Behind You!

The Crystal Sphere Of Thought Is As Concentrical As The Geological Structure Of The Globe. As Our Soils And Rocks Lie In Strata, Concentric Strata, So Do All Men's Thinkings Run Laterally, Never Vertically.

Tart, Cathartic Virtue.

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

Want Is A Growing Giant Whom The Coat Of Have Was Never Large Enough To Cover.

Literature Is The Effort Of Man To Indemnify Himself For The Wrongs Of His Condition.

Trending Author

Pedro Almodovar

Robert Kiyosaki

Category