Background Image

...

Power Ceases In The Instant Of Repose; It Resides In The Moment Of Transition From A Past To A New State, In The Shooting Of The Gulf, In The Darting To An Aim.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Power Ceases In The

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Power Ceases In The Instant Of Repose; It Resides In The Moment Of Transition From A Past To A New State, In The Shooting Of The Gulf, In The Darting To An Aim.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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.

Science Is Nothing But The Finding Of Analogy, Identity, In The Most Remote Parts.

Nature Has Her Own Best Mode Of Doing Each Thing, And She Has Somewhere Told It Plainly, If We Will Keep Our Eyes And Ears Open. If Not, She Will Not Be Slow In Undeceiving Us, When We Prefer Our Own Way To Hers.

We Legislate Against Forestalling And Monopoly; We Would Have A Common Granary For The Poor; But The Selfishness Which Hoards Thecorn For High Prices, Is The Preventative Of Famine; And The Law Of Self-preservation Is Surer Policy Than Any Legislation Can Be.

Undoubtedly We Have No Questions To Ask Which Are Unanswerable. We Must Trust The Perfection Of The Creation So Far, As To Believe That Whatever Curiosity The Order Of Things Has Awakened In Our Minds, The Order Of Things Can Satisfy. Every Man's Condition Is A Solution In Hieroglyphic To Those Inquiries He Would Put. He Acts It As Life, Before He Apprehends It As Truth.

He Who Would Be A Man Must Therefore Be A Non-conformist.

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

You Must Let Go Of A Thing For A New One To Come To You.

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.

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.

Housekeeping Is Not Beautiful; It Cheers And Raises Neither The Husband, The Wife, Nor The Child; Neither The Host Nor The Guest;it Oppresses Women. A House Kept To The End Of Prudence Is Laborious Without Joy; A House Kept To The End Of Display Is Impossible To All But A Few Women, And Their Success Is Dearly Bought.

Commit A Crime, And The Earth Is Made Of Glass.

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

For No Man Can Write Anything Who Does Not Think That What He Writes Is, For The Time, The History Of The World.

A Man Must Be In Sympathy With Society Around Him, Or Else, Not Wish To Be In Sympathy With It. If Neither Of These Two, He Must Be Wretched.

No Power Of Genius Has Ever Yet Had The Smallest Success In Explaining Existence. The Perfect Enigma Remains.

The Mob Is Man Voluntarily Descending To The Nature Of The Beast. Its Fit Hour Of Activity Is Night. Its Actions Are Insane Like Its Whole Constitution. It Persecutes A Principle; It Would Whip A Right; It Would Tar And Feather Justice, By Inflicting Fire And Outrage Upon The Houses And Persons Of Those Who Have These. It Resembles The Prank Of Boys, Who Run With Fire-engines To Put Out The Ruddy Aurora Streaming To The Stars.

The Reverence For The Deeds Of Our Ancestors Is A Treacherous Sentiment. Their Merit Was Not To Reverence The Old, But To Honor The Present Moment; And We Falsely Make Them Excuses Of The Very Habit Which They Hated And Defied.

To Finish The Moment, To Find The Journey's End In Every Step Of The Road, To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours, Is Wisdom. It Is Not The Part Of Men, But Of Fanatics, Or Of Mathematicians, If You Will, To Say, That, The Shortness Of Life Considered, It Is Not Worth Caring Whether For So Short A Duration We Were Sprawling In Want, Or Sitting High. Since Our Office Is With Moments, Let Us Husband Them.

Be Sure Then To Read No Mean Books. Shun The Spawn Of The Press On The Gossip Of The Hour. Do Not Read What You Shall Learn, Without Asking, In The Street And The Train.

The Best University That Can Be Recommended To A Man Of Ideas Is The Gauntlet Of The Mob.

We Honor The Rich Because They Have Externally The Freedom, Power, And Grace Which We Feel To Be Proper To Man, Proper To Us.

There Is Guidance For Each Of Us, And By Lowly Listening We Shall Hear The Right Word.

We Will Walk On Our Own Feet; We Will Work With Our Own Hands; We Will Speak Our Own Minds... A Nation Of Men Will For The First Time Exist, Because Each Believes Himself Inspired By The Divine Soul Which Also Inspires All Men.

Wise Men Read Very Sharply All Of Your Private History In Your Look And Gait And Behavior.

So Nigh Is Grandeur To Our Dust, So Near Is God To Man, When Duty Whispers Low, 'thou Must,' The Youth Whispers, 'i Can.

To Speak Truly, Few Adult Persons Can See Nature. Most Persons Do Not See The Sun. At Least They Have A Very Superficial Seeing. The Sun Illuminates Only The Eye Of The Man, But Shines Into The Eye And Heart Of The Child.

The Religion Of England Is Part Of Good-breeding. When You See On The Continent The Well-dressed Englishman Come Into His Ambassador's Chapel And Put His Face For Silent Prayer Into His Smooth-brushed Hat, You Cannot Help Feeling How Much National Pride Prays With Him, And The Religion Of A Gentleman.

Men Have Sometimes Exchanged Names With Their Friends, As If They Would Signify That In Their Friend Each Loved His Own Soul.

A Strenuous Soul Hates Cheap Success. It Is The Ardor Of The Assailant That Makes The Vigor Of The Defendant.

Let Him Be Great, And Love Shall Follow Him. Nothing Is More Deeply Punished Than The Neglect Of The Affinities By Which Alone Society Should Be Formed, And The Insane Levity Of Choosing Associates By Others Eyes.

Luck Is Just Another Word For Tenacity Of Purpose.

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

And Of Poetry, The Success Is Not Attained When It Lulls And Satisfies, But When It Astonishes And Fires Us With New Endeavours After The Unattainable.

The Two Terrors That Discourage Creativity And Creative Living Are Fear Of Public Opinion And Undue Reverence For One's Own Consistency.

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.

A Deep Man Believes That The Evil Eye Can Whither, The Heart's Blessing Can Heal, And That Love Can Overcome All Odds.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose.

To Finish The Moment, To Find The Journey's End In Every Step Of The Road, To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours, Is Wisdom.

Every Heroic Act Measures Itself By Its Contempt Of Some External Good. But It Finds Its Own Success At Last, And Then The Prudent Also Extol.

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.

Often A Certain Abdication Of Prudence And Foresight Is An Element Of Success.

Congratulations

Genius Seems To Consist Merely In Trueness Of Sight, In Using Such Words As Show That The Man Was An Eye-witness, And Not A Repeater Of What Was Told.

For Poetry Was All Written Before Time Was, And Whenever We Are So Finely Organized That We Can Penetrate Into That Region Where The Air Is Music, We Hear Those Primal Warblings, And Attempt To Write Them Down, But We Lose Ever And Anon A Word, A Verse, And Substitute Something Of Our Own, And Thus Miswrite The Poem.

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.

People Seem Sheathed In Their Tough Organization.

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

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

The Whole Course Of Things Goes To Teach Us Faith. We Need Only Obey. There Is Guidance For Each Of Us, And By Lowly Listening We Shall Hear The Right Word. . . . Place Yourself In The Middle Of The Stream Of Power And Wisdom Which Flows Into You As Life, Place Yourself In The Full Center Of That Flood, Then You Are Without Effort Impelled To Truth, To Right, And A Perfect Contentment.

The Case Wouldn't Be Overweight If You Didn't Have So Many Shoes. How Many Do You Really Need? This Pair, For Example, I Swear You Never Even Wore Them.

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

In Imitation Is A Bit Suicide.

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.

Character Repudiates Intellect, Yet Excites It; And Character Passes Into Thought, Is Published So, And Then Is Ashamed Before Newflashes Of Moral Worth.

We May Be Partial, But Fate Is Not.

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.

The Art Of Sculpture Is Long Ago Perished To Any Real Effect... It Is The Game Of A Rude And Youthful People, And Not The Manly Labour Of A Wise And Spiritual Nation.

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.

One Of The Illusions Of Life Is That The Present Hour Is Not The Critical Decisive Hour. Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day Of The Year. He Only Is Right Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded By Worry, Fret And Anxiety. Finish Every Day, And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could.

Great Geniuses Have The Shortest Biographies. Their Cousins Can Tell You Nothing About Them. They Lived In Their Writings, And Sotheir House And Street Life Was Trivial And Commonplace. If You Would Know Their Tastes And Complexions, The Most Admiring Of Their Readers Most Resembles Them.

Today Is A King In Disguise.

But The Mark Of American Merit In Painting, In Sculpture, In Poetry, In Fiction, In Eloquence, Seems To Be A Certain Grace Withoutgrandeur, And Itself Not New But Derivative; A Vase Of Fair Outline, But Empty,--which Whoso Sees, May Fill With What Wit And Character Is In Him, But Which Does Not, Like The Charged Cloud, Overflow With Terrible Beauty, And Emit Lightnings On All Beholders.

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.

Men Have Come To Speak Of The Revelation As Somewhat Long Ago Given And Done, As If God Were Dead. The Injury To Faith Throttles The Preacher; And The Goodliest Of Institutions Becomes An Uncertain And Inarticulate Voice.

The Reward Of Commercial Civilization Is The Ability To Consume A Never-ending Array Of Products.there Are Limits Beyond Which Commodities Cannot Be Multiplied Without Preventing Their Consumers From Affirming Themselves Through The Exercise Of Their Personal Freedom.when Market Dependence Reaches A Certain Threshold It Deprives People Of Their Power To Live Creatively And To Act Autonomously. And Precisely Because This New Impotence Is So Deeply Experienced, It Is Expressed With Difficulty.

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.

Indeed The River Is A Perpetual Gala, And Boasts Each Month A New Ornament.

Sickness Is Poor-spirited, And Cannot Serve Anyone; It Must Husband Its Resources To Live. But Health Or Fullness Answers Its Own Ends, And Has To Spare, Runs Over, And Inundates The Neighborhoods And Creeks Of Other Men's Necessities.

Nature, As We Know Her, Is No Saint.... She Comes Eating And Drinking And Sinning.

Every Thing Admonishes Us How Needlessly Long Life Is.

One More Fagot Of These Adamantine Bandages Is The New Science Of Statistics.

Pines A Thousand Years Old. Every Year They Must Go Farther For Them: They Recede, Like Beavers And Indians, Before The White Man.

Sole And Self-commanded Works, Fears Not Undermining Days, Grows By Decays, And, By The Famous Might That Lurks In Reaction And Recoil, Makes Flames To Freeze, And Ice To Boil.

A Sect Or Party Is An Elegant Incognito Devised To Save A Man From The Vexation Of Thinking.

Eloquence Must Be Grounded On The Plainest Narrative.

Live In The Sunshine.

The True Thrift Is Always To Spend On The Higher Plane; To Invest And Invest, With Keener Avarice, That He May Spend In Spiritualcreation, And Not In Augmenting Animal Existence. Nor Is The Man Enriched, In Repeating The Old Experiments Of Animal Sensation; Nor Unless Through New Powers And Ascending Pleasures He Knows Himself By The Actual Experience Of Higher Good To Be Already On The Way To The Highest.

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.

A Good Reader Makes A Good Book

We Shun The Rugged Battle Of Fate Where Strength Is Born.

Let Us Be Poised, Wise And Our Own Today.

In Eloquence, The Great Triumphs Of The Art Are When The Orator Is Lifted Above Himself; When Consciously He Makes Himself The Mere Tongue Of The Occasion And The Hour, And Says What Cannot But Be Said. Hence The Term "abandonment" To Describe The Self- Surrender Of The Orator. Not His Will, But The Principle On Which He Is Horsed, The Great Connection And Crisis Of Events, Thunder In The Ear Of The Crowd.

Men In All Ways Are Better Than They Seem.

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 Rain Comes When The Wind Calls.

I Am Present At The Sowing Of The Seed Of The World. With A Geometry Of Sunbeams, The Soul Lays The Foundations Of Nature.

Things Are In The Saddle. And Ride Mankind.

Transcendentalism

There Is No Den In The Wide World To Hide A Rogue. Commit A Crime, And The Earth Is Made Of Glass. Commit A Crime, And It Seems As If A Coat Of Snow Fell On The Ground, Such As Reveals In The Woods The Track Of Every Partridge And Fox And Squirrel And Mole.

No Law Can Be Sacred To Me But That Of My Nature. Good And Bad Are But Names Very Readily Transferable To That Or This; The Only Right Is What Is After My Constitution; The Only Wrong Is What Is Against It.

Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But The Triumph Of Principles.

But The Wise Know That Foolish Legislation Is A Rope Of Sand, Which Perishes In The Twisting; That The State Must Follow, And Notlead The Character And Progress Of The Citizen; The Strongest Usurper Is Quickly Got Rid Of; And They Only Who Build On Ideas, Build For Eternity; And That The Form Of Government Which Prevails, Is The Expression Of What Cultivation Exists In The Population Which Permits It.

There Is No Beautifier Of Complexion, Or Form, Or Behavior, Like The Wish To Scatter Joy And Not Pain Around Us.

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

If We Shall Take The Good We Find, Asking No Questions, We Shall Have Heaping Measures.

The World Belongs To The Energetic.

Women, More Than All, Are The Element And Kingdom Of Illusion. Being Fascinated, They Fascinate.

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

We Mark With Light In The Memory The Few Interviews We Have Had With Souls That Made Our Souls Wiser, That Spoke What We Thought, That Told Us What We Knew, That Gave Us Leave To Be What We Inly Are.

We Are Sure That, Though We Know Not How, Necessity Does Comport With Liberty, The Individual With The World, My Polarity With Thespirit Of The Times. The Riddle Of The Age Has For Each A Private Solution.

Nature Is Too Thin A Screen; The Glory Of The Omnipresent God Bursts Through Everywhere

How Can He [today's Writer] Be Honored, When He Does Not Honor Himself; When He Loses Himself In The Crowd; When He Is No Longer The Lawgiver, But The Sycophant, Ducking To The Giddy Opinion Of A Reckless Public.

In Failing Circumstances No One Can Be Relied On To Keep Their Integrity.

Each Truth That A Writer Acquires Is A Lantern, Which He Turns Full On What Facts And Thoughts Lay Already In His Mind, And Behold, All The Mats And Rubbish Which Had Littered His Garret Become Precious. Every Trivial Fact In His Private Biography Becomes An Illustration Of This New Principle, Revisits The Day, And Delights All Men By Its Piquancy And New Charm.

For What Avail The Plough Or Sail, Or Land Or Life, If Freedom Fail?

An Ounce Of Action Is Worth A Ton Of Theory.

The Best Political Economy Is The Care And Culture Of Men; For, In These Crises, All Are Ruined Except Such As Are Proper Individuals, Capable Of Thought, And Of New Choice And The Application Of Their Talent To New Labor.

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.

The Right Eloquence Needs No Bell To Call The People Together, And No Constable To Keep Them.

All Great Men Come Out Of The Middle Classes.

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

The Flowers Talk When The Wind Blows Over Them.

The Great Poet Makes Us Feel Our Own Wealth, And Then We Think Less Of His Compositions. His Best Communication To Our Mind Is To Teach Us To Despise All He Has Done.

A Great Man Is Always Willing To Be Little.

It Is In Bad Taste," Is The Most Formidable Word An Englishman Can Pronounce.

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy.

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise.

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

The Progress Of Religion Is Steadily To Its Identity With Morals. Strength Enters Just As Much As The Moral Element Prevails.

In Analysing History Do Not Be Too Profound, For Often The Causes Are Quite Superficial.

Every Man I Meet Is In Some Way My Superior...

The Gods We Worship Write Their Names On Our Faces; Be Sure Of That. And A Man Will Worship Something ... That Which Dominates Will Determine His Life And Character. Therefore It Behooves Us To Be Careful What We Worship, For What We Are Worshipping We Are Becoming.

The Good Rain, Like A Bad Preacher, Does Not Know When To Leave Off.

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

The Book Of Nature Is The Book Of Fate. She Turns The Gigantic Pages, Leaf After Leaf Never Returning One.

Skepticism Is Slow Suicide.

When The Act Of Reflection Takes Place In The Mind, When We Look At Ourselves In The Light Of Thought, We Discover That Our Life Is Embosomed In Beauty.

Cunning Is Strength Withheld.

Most Of The Great Results Of History Are Brought About By Discreditable Means.

Whenever You Are Sincerely Pleased You Are Nourished.

If I Quake, What Matters It What I Quake At? Our Proper Vice Takes Form In One Or Another Shape, According To The Sex, Age, Or Temperament Of The Person, And, If We Are Capable Of Fear, Will Readily Find Terrors.

The Heroic Soul Does Not Sell Its Justice And Its Nobleness.

When Nature Has Work To Be Done, She Creates A Genius To Do It.

Consistency Is The Bugbear That Frightens Little Minds.

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

Governments Have Their Origin In The Moral Identity Of Men.

Wherever We Go, Whatever We Do, Self Is The Sole Subject We Study And Learn.

It Is Better To Be A Thorn In The Side Of A Friend Than An Echo.

We Live Ruins Amid Ruins.

Society Is Infested By Persons Who, Seeing That The Sentiments Please, Counterfeit The Expression Of Them. These We Call Sentimentalists - Talkers Who Mistake The Description For The Thing, Saying For Having.

Nothing External To You Has Any Power Over You.

In England Every Man You Meet Is Some Man's Son; In America, He May Be Some Man's Father.

The Compensations Of Calamity Are Made Apparent To The Understanding Also, After Long Intervals Of Time.

People Disparage Knowing And The Intellectual Life, And Urge Doing. I Am Content With Knowing, If Only I Could Know.

Wild Liberty Breeds Iron Conscience; Natures With Great Impulses Have Great Resources, And Return From Far.

Shakespeare Will Never Be Made By The Study Of Shakespeare.

Hast Thou Named All The Birds Without A Gun?

The Ship Of Heaven Guides Itself And Will Not Accept A Wooden Rudder.

The Other Terror That Scares Us From Self-trust Is Our Consistency; A Reverence For Our Past Act Or Word, Because The Eyes Of Others Have No Other Data For Computing Our Orbit Than Our Past Acts, And We Are Loath To Disappoint Them.

Nature Is Good, But Intellect Is Better, As The Law-giver Is Before The Law-receiver.

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

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

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity.

The Soul Rules Over Matter. Matter May Pass Away Like A Mote In The Sunbeam, May Be Absorbed Into The Immensity Of God, As A Mistis Absorbed Into The Heat Of The Sun--but The Soul Is The Kingdom Of God, The Abode Of Love, Of Truth, Of Virtue.

Heat Of The Sun

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.

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.

I Am Thankful For Small Mercies. I Compared Notes With One Of My Friends Who Expect Everything Of The Universe, And Is Disappointed When Anything Is Less Than The Best, And I Found That I Begin At The Other Extreme, Expecting Nothing, And Am Always Full Of Thanks For Moderate Good. . . . If We Will Take The Good We Find, . . . We Shall Have Heaping Measures. . . .

Every Man Is The Inlet And May Become The Outlet Of All There Is In God.

Man Is Timid And Apologetic; He Is No Longer Upright; He Dares Not Say "i Think," "i Am," But Quotes Some Saint Or Sage.

Miracle Comes To The Miraculous, Not To The Arithmetician.

Liberty Is A Slow Fruit.

Be Yourself; No Base Imitator Of Another, But Your Best Self. There Is Something Which You Can Do Better Than Another. Listen To The Inward Voice And Bravely Obey That. Do The Things At Which You Are Great, Not What You Were Never Made For.

Things Are Pretty, Graceful, Rich, Elegant, Handsome, But, Until They Speak To The Imagination, Not Yet Beautiful.

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

Every Sweet Has Its Sour; Every Evil Its Good.

The Unique Impression Of Jesus Upon Mankind - Whose Name Is Not So Much Written As Ploughed Into The History Of The World - Is Proof Of The Subtle Virtue Of This Infusion. Jesus Belonged To The Race Of Prophets. He Saw With Open Eyes The Mystery Of The Soul. One Man Was True To What Is In You And Me. He, As I Think, Is The Only Soul In History Who Has Appreciated The Worth Of Man.

The Secret Of Drunkenness Is, That It Insulates Us In Thought, Whilst It Unites Us In Feeling.

What We Do Not Call Education Is More Precious Than That Which We Call So. We Form No Guess, At The Time Of Receiving A Thought, Of Its Comparative Value. And Education Often Wastes Its Effort In Attempts To Thwart And Balk This Natural Magnetism, Which Is Sure To Select What Belongs To It.

There Will Always Be In Society Certain Persons Who Are Mercuries Of Its Approbation, And Whose Glance Will At Any Time Determinefor The Curious Their Standing In The World. These Are The Chamberlains Of The Lesser Gods. Accept Their Coldness As An Omen Of Grace With The Loftier Deities, And Allow Them All Their Privilege.

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?

Our Religion Vulgarly Stands On Numbers Of Believers. Whenever The Appeal Is Made--no Matter How Indirectly--to Numbers, Proclamation Is Then And There Made, That Religion Is Not. He That Finds God A Sweet, Enveloping Presence, Who Shall Dare To Come In?

It Never Was In The Power Of Any Man Or Any Community To Call The Arts Into Being. They Come To Serve His Actual Wants, Never To Please His Fancy.

The Sum Of Wisdom Is That Time Is Never Lost That Is Devoted To Work.

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

I Have Heard That Whoever Loves Is In No Condition Old. I Have Heard That Whenever The Name Of Man Is Spoken, The Doctrine Of Immortality Is Announced; It Cleaves To His Constitution. The Mode Of It Baffles Our Wit, And No Whisper Comes To Us From The Other Side. But The Inference From The Working Of Intellect, Hiving Knowledge, Hiving Skill,--at The End Of Life Just Ready To Be Born,--affirms The Inspirations Of Affection And Of The Moral Sentiment.

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

If You Love And Serve Man, You Cannot, By Any Hiding Or Stratagem, Escape Remuneration.

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.

A Beautiful Soul Always Dwells In A Beautiful World.

A Man Is The Prisoner Of His Power. A Topical Memory Makes Him An Almanac; A Talent For Debate, Disputant; Skill To Get Money Makes Him A Miser, That Is, A Beggar. Culture Reduces These Inflammations By Invoking The Aid Of Other Powers Against The Dominant Talent, And By Appealing To The Rank Of Powers. It Watches Success.

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

Tis Curious That We Only Believe As Deeply As We Live.

Money Often Costs Too Much, And Power And Pleasure Are Not Cheap.

When Half-gods Go The Gods Arrive.

Moderation In All Things, Especially Moderation.

Moderation In All Things

I Think The Vice Of Our Housekeeping Is That It Does Not Hold Man Sacred. The Vice Of Government, The Vice Of Education, The Viceof Religion, Is One With That Of The Private Life.

The Boxer's Ring Is The Enjoyment Of The Part Of Society Whose Animal Nature Alone Has Been Developed.

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

Why Should We Fear To Be Crushed By Savage Elements, We Who Are Made Up Of The Same Elements?

A Man Cannot Utter Two Or Three Sentences Without Disclosing To Intelligent Ears Precisely Where He Stands In Life And Thought, Whether In The Kingdom Of The Senses And The Understanding, Or In That Of Ideas And Imagination, Or In The Realm Of Intuitions And Duty.

The Soul Of God Is Poured Into The World Through The Thoughts Of Men.

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.

Everything In The Universe Goes By Indirection. There Are No Straight Lines.

Let Us Even Bid Our Dearest Friends Farewell, And Defy Them, Saying, "who Are You? Unhand Me: I Will Be Dependent No More." Ah! Seest Thou Not, O Brother, That Thus We Part Only To Meet Again On A Higher Platform, And Only Be More Each Other's, Because We Are More Our Own?

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

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.

Whoever Has Had The Experience Of The Moral Sentiment Cannot Choose But Believe In Unlimited Power. Each Pulse From That Heart Isan Oath From The Most High. I Know Not What The Word Sublime Means, If It Be Not The Intimations, In This Infant, Of A Terrific Force.

Envy Is The Tax Which All Distinction Must Pay.

Use What Language You Will, You Can Never Say Anything But What You Are.

Earth Endures; Stars Abide.

Trending Author

Natan Sharansky

Richard Hammond

Category