Background Image

...

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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Proverbs Are The Literature

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

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.

Views: 61403

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sculpture And Painting Have The Effect Of Teaching Us Manners And Abolishing Hurry.

Thought And Knowledge Are Natures In Which Apparatus And Pretension Avail Nothing. Gowns, And Pecuniary Foundations, Though Of Towns Of Gold, Can Never Countervail The Least Sentence Or Syllable Of Wit. Forget This, And Out American Colleges Will Recede In Their Public Importance Whilst They Grow Richer Every Year.

If We Live Truly, We Shall See Truly. It Is As Easy For The Strong Man To Be Strong, As It Is For The Weak To Be Weak.

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.

Cupid Is A Casuist, A Mystic, And A Cabalist,-- Can Your Lurking Thought Surprise, And Interpret Your Device, . . . . All Things Wait For And Divine Him,-- How Shall I Dare To Malign Him?

Neither You Nor The World Knows What You Can Do Until You Have Tried.

I Consider Theology To Be The Rhetoric Of Morals.

The World Is His Who Can See Through Its Pretension. What Deafness, What Stone-blind Custom, What Overgrown Error You Behold, Is There Only By Sufferance,--by Your Sufferance. See It To Be A Lie, And You Have Already Dealt It Its Mortal Blow.

Keep Your Friendships In Repair.

There Is No Beautifier Of Complexion, Or Form, Or Behavior, Like The Wish To Scatter Joy And Not Pain Around Us. 'tis Good To Give A Stranger A Meal, Or A Night's Lodging. 'tis Better To Be Hospitable To His Good Meaning And Thought, And Give Courage To A Companion. We Must Be As Courteous To A Man As We Are To A Picture, Which We Are Willing To Give The Advantage Of A Good Light.

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.

Nature Is A Rag Merchant, Who Works Up Every Shred And Ort And End Into New Creations.

Nothing Great Ever Happened Without Enthusiasm.

We Live Amid Surfaces, And The True Art Of Life Is To Skate Well On Them

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

There Are Some Men Above Grief And Some Men Below It.

Emancipation Is The Demand Of Civilization. That Is A Principle; Everything Else Is An Intrigue.

So Shall We Come To Look At The World With New Eyes.

We Live By Our Imagination, Our Admirations, And Our Sentiments.

Not Always Can Flowers, Pearls, Poetry, Protestations, Nor Even Home In Another Heart, Content The Awful Soul That Dwells In Clay.

Nature Wishes That Woman Should Attract Man, Yet She Often Cunningly Moulds Into Her Face A Little Sarcasm, Which Seems To Say, 'yes, I Am Willing To Attract, But To Attract A Little Better Kind Of A Man Than Any I Yet Behold

Many Times The Reading Of A Book Has Made The Future Of A Man.

One Thing Is Forever Good; That One Thing Is Success.

A Man's Action Is Only A Poicture Book Of His Creed.

The Eloquent Man Is He Who Is No Beautiful Speaker, But Who Is Inwardly And Desperately Drunk With A Certain Belief.

Ah, If The Rich Were Rich As The Poor Fancy Riches.

If I Made Laws For Shakers Or A School, I Should Gazette Every Saturday All The Words They Were Wont To Use In Reporting Religious Experience, As "spiritual Life," "god," "soul," "cross," Etc., And If They Could Not Find New Ones Next Week, They Might Remain Silent.

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.

Sorrow Makes Us All Children Again - Destroys All Differences Of Intellect. The Wisest Know Nothing.

No Member Of A Crew Is Praised For The Rugged Individuality Of His Rowing.

The Society Of The Energetic Class, In Their Friendly And Festive Meetings, Is Full Of Courage, And Of Attempts, Which Intimidatethe Pale Scholar.

Great Men, Great Nations, Have Not Been Boasters And Buffoons, But Perceivers Of The Terror Of Life, And Have Manned Themselves To Face It.

Sorrow Looks Back, Worry Looks Around, Faith Looks Up

Common Sense Is As Rare As Genius.

Whenever A Mind Is Simple And Receives An Old Wisdom, Old Things Pass Away,--means, Teachers, Texts, Temples Fall; It Lives Now, And Absorbs Past And Future Into Present Hour. All Things Are Made Sacred By Relation To It,--one As Much As Another.

The Attraction And Superiority Of California Are In Its Days. It Has Better Days & More Of Them, Than Any Other Country.

Every Man's Task [his 'great Dream' And Impassioned Life-goal] Is His Life Preserver.

Profound Sincerity Is The Only Basis Of Talent As Of Character.

Beauty Through My Senses Stole; I Yielded Myself To The Perfect Whole.

We Aim Above The Mark To Hit The Mark.

Every Man Is An Impossibility Until He Is Born.

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.

The Essence Of Greatness Is The Perception That Virtue Is Enough.

A Friend May Be Nature's Most Magnificent Creation.

A Dilettantism In Nature Is Barren And Unworthy. A Fop Of Fields Is No Better Than His Brother On Broadway.

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

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

By Persisting In Your Path, Though You Forfeit The Little, You Gain The Great.

I Am Defeated All The Time, Yet To Victory I Am Born.

In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

Morality Is The Object Of Government.

Genius Is Saying What Is In Your Heart, Because It's In Everyone's Heart.

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.

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

When Half-gods Go The Gods Arrive.

He Who Should Inspire And Lead His Race Must Be Defended From Travelling With The Souls Of Other Men, From Living, Breathing, Reading, And Writing In The Daily, Time-worn Yoke Of Their Opinions.

Sitting Back In The Evening, Stargazing And Stroking Your Dog, Is An Infallible Remedy.

A Vivid Thought Brings The Power To Paint It; And In Proportion To The Depth Of Its Source Is The Force Of Its Projection.

Things Have Their Laws As Well As Men, And Things Refuse To Be Trifled With.

The Gates Of Thought, - How Slow And Late They Discover Themselves! Yet When They Appear, We See That They Were Always There, Always Open.

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

Nothing External To You Has Any Power Over You.

The Louder He Talked Of His Honor, The Faster We Counted Our Spoons.

[d]ivine Providence... Keeps The Universe Open In Every Direction To The Soul.

It Has Been The Office Of Art To Educate The Perception Of Beauty. We Are Immersed In Beauty But Our Eyes Have No Clear Vision.

The Population Of The World Is A Conditional Population; These Are Not The Best, But The Best That Could Live In The Existing State Of Soils, Gases, Animals, And Morals: The Best That Could Yet Live; There Shall Be A Better, Please God.

A Good Indignation Brings Out All One's Powers.

The Restraining Grace Of Common Sense Is The Mark Of All Valid Minds.

We Want Men And Women Who Shall Renovate Life And Our Social State But We See That Most Natures Are Insolvent, Cannot Satisfy Their Own Wants, Have An Ambition Out Of All Proportion To Their Practical Force, And So Do Lean And Beg Day And Night Continually.

America Is Another Name For Opportunity.

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.

Fear Is A Great Instructor.

In The Highest Civilization, The Book Is Still The Highest Delight. He Who Has Once Known Its Satisfactions Is Provided With A Resource Against Calamity.

New York Is A Sucked Orange. All Conversation Is At An End, When We Have Discharged Ourselves Of A Dozen Personalities, Domestic Or Imported, Which Make Up Our American Existence.

Our Country, Customs, Laws, Our Ambitions, And Our Notions Of Fit And Fair-all These We Never Made; We Found Them Ready-made; We But Quote From Them. What Would Remain To Me If This Art Of Appropriation Were Derogatory To Genius? Every One Of My Writings Has Been Furnished To Me By A Thousand Different Persons, A Thousand Things; Wise And Foolish Have Brought Me, Without Suspecting It, The Offering Of Their Thoughts, Faculties, And Experience. My Work Is An Aggregation Of Beings Taken From The Whole Of Nature. It Bears The Name Of Goethe.

Every Genuine Work Of Art Has As Much Reason For Being As The Earth And The Sun.

A Man Comes To Measure His Greatness By The Regrets, Envies And Hatreds Of His Competitors.

Perception Is A Mirror Not A Fact. And What I Look On Is My State Of Mind, Reflected Outward.

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

Men Are Lenses Through Which We Read Our Own Minds.

Let Us Leave Hurry To Slaves.

When We Attempt To Define And Describe God, Both Language And Thought Desert Us, And We Are As Helpless As Fools And Savages.

Let Us Interrogate The Great Apparition, That Shines So Peacefully Around Us.

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

Don't Be A Cynic And Disconsolate Preacher. Don't Bewail And Moan. Omit The Negative Propositions. Challenge Us With Incessant Affirmatives.

Every Wall Is A Door.

But Wise Men Pierce This Rotten Diction And Fasten Words Again To Visible Things; So That Picturesque Language Is At Once A Commanding Certificate That He Who Employs It, Is A Man In Alliance With Truth And God.

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.

An Orator Or Author Is Never Successful Till He Has Learned To Make His Words Smaller Than His Ideas.

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

The Refining Influence Is The Study Of Art, Which Is The Science Of Beauty; And I Find That Every Man Values Every Scrap Of Knowledge In Art, Every Observation Of His Own In It, Every Hint He Has Caught From Another. For The Laws Of Beauty Are The Beauty Of Beauty, And Give The Mind The Same Or A Higher Joy Than The Sight Of It Gives The Senses. The Study Of Art Is Of High Value To The Growth Of The Intellect.

Our Moods Do Not Believe In Each Other.

The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity.

Dreams And Beasts Are Two Keys By Which We Find Out The Keys Of Our Own Nature.

We Do Not Live An Equal Life, But One Of Contrasts And Patchwork; Now A Little Joy, Then A Sorrow, Now A Sin, Then A Generous Or Brave Action.

Few And Mean As My Gifts May Be, I Actually Am, And Do Not Need For My Own Assurance Or The Assurance Of My Fellows Any Secondary Testimony.

Nothing Divine Dies. All Good Is Eternally Reproductive. The Beauty Of Nature Re-forms Itself In The Mind, And Not For Barren Contemplation, But For New Creation.

The Flowers Talk When The Wind Blows Over Them.

If A Man Carefully Examine His Thoughts He Will Be Surprised To Find How Much He Lives In The Future. His Well-being Is Always Ahead. Such A Creature Is Probably Immortal.

A Man's Wife Has More Power Over Him Than The State Has.

Tobacco, Coffee, Alcohol, Hashish, Prussic Acid, Strychnine, Are Weak Dilutions. The Surest Poison Is Time.

Nature Paints The Best Part Of A Picture, Carves The Best Parts Of The Statue, Builds The Best Part Of The House, And Speaks The Best Part Of The Oration.

We Know That Madness Belongs To Love,--what Power To Paint A Vile Object In Hues Of Heaven.

Must We Always Talk For Victory, And Never Once For Truth, For Comfort, And Joy?

Comfort And Joy

Nothing Is Great But The Inexhaustible Wealth Of Nature.

It Is A Tie Between Men To Have Read The Same Book.

A Certain Awkwardness Marks The Use Of Borrowed Thoughts; But As Soon As We Have Learned What To Do With Them, They Become Our Own.

The Colleges, While They Provide Us With Libraries, Furnish No Professors Of Books; And I Think No Chair Is So Much Needed.

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

Among Provocative, The Next Best Thing To Good Preaching Is Bad Preaching.

You Cannot Do Wrong Without Suffering Wrong.

No Society Can Ever Be So Large As One Man.

The Sun Is The Sole Inconsumable Fireand God Is The Sole Inexhaustible Giver.

There Is Genius As Well In Virtue As In Intellect. 'tis The Doctrine Of Faith Over Works.

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 First Steps In Agriculture, Astronomy, Zoology, (those First Steps Which The Farmer, The Hunter, And The Sailor Take,) Teach That Nature's Dice Are Always Loaded; That In Her Heaps And Rubbish Are Concealed Sure And Useful Results.

The World - This Shadow Of The Soul, Or Other Me - Lies Wide Around. Its Attractions Are The Keys Which Unlock My Thoughts And Make Me Acquainted With Myself. I Run Eagerly Into This Resounding Tumult... So Much Only Of Life As I Know By Experience... The True Scholar Grudges Every Opportunity Of Action Past By, As A Loss Of Power.

We Are As Much Informed Of A Writer's Genius By What He Selects As By What He Originates.

What Can We See, Read, Acquire, But Ourselves. Take The Book, My Friend, And Read Your Eyes Out, You Will Never Find There What I Find.

The Terrible Tabulation Of The French Statists Brings Every Piece Of Whim And Humor To Be Reducible Also To Exact Numerical Ratios. If One Man In Twenty Thousand, Or In Thirty Thousand, Eats Shoes, Or Marries His Grandmother, Then, In Every Twenty Thousand, Or Thirty Thousand, Is Found One Man Who Eats Shoes, Or Marries His Grandmother.

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

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

I Am At A Loss To Understand Why People Hold Miss Austen's Novels At So High A Rate, Which Seem To Me Vulgar In Tone, Sterile In Artistic Invention, Imprisoned In Their Wretched Conventions Of English Society, Without Genius, Wit, Or Knowledge Of The World. Never Was Life So Pinched And Narrow. ... All That Interests In Any Character [is This]: Has He (or She) The Money To Marry With? ... Suicide Is More Respectable.

Our High Respect For A Well-read Man Is Praise Enough For Literature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ne Te Quaesiveris Extra." (do Not Seek For Things Outside Of Yourself)

No Love Can Be Bound By Oath Or Covenant To Secure It Against A Higher Love.

What Is A Weed? A Plant Whose Virtues Have Not Yet Been Discovered.[what Is A Sorrow? A Feeling Whose Benefits Have Not Yet Been Discovered]

The Life Of Man Is A Self-evolving Circle, Which, From A Ring Imperceptibly Small, Rushes On All Sides Outwards To New And Largercircles, And That Without End.

A Child Reminds Us That Playtime Is An Essential Part Of Our Daily Routine.

The Office Of The Scholar Is To Cheer, To Raise, And To Guide Men By Showing Them Facts Amidst Appearances.

Every Act Of The Man Inscribes Itself In The Memories Of His Fellows, And In His Own Manners And Face. The Air Is Full Of Sounds;the Sky, Of Tokens; The Ground Is All Memoranda And Signatures; And Every Object Covered Over With Hints, Which Speak To The Intelligent.

There Is Always Safety In Valor.

What Terrible Questions We Are Learning To Ask! The Former Men Believed In Magic, By Which Temples, Cities, And Men Were Swallowed Up, And All Trace Of Them Gone. We Are Coming On The Secret Of A Magic Which Sweeps Out Of Men's Minds All Vestige Of Theism And Beliefs Which They And Their Fathers Held And Were Framed Upon.

Don't Trust Children With Edge Tools. Don't Trust Man, Great God, With More Power Than He Has Until He Has Learned To Use That Little Better. What A Hell We Should Make Of The World If We Could Do What We Would!

For A Great Nature, It Is A Happiness To Escape A Religious Training; Religion Of Character Is So Apt To Be Invaded.

Alas For America As I Must So Often Say, The Ungirt, The Diffuse, The Profuse, Procumbent, One Wide Ground Juniper, Out Of Which No Cedar, No Oak Will Rear Up A Mast To The Clouds! It All Runs To Leaves, To Suckers, To Tendrils, To Miscellany. The Air Is Loaded With Poppy, With Imbecility, With Dispersion, & Sloth.

I Am Not Engaged To Christianity By Decent Forms, Or Saving Ordinances; It Is Not Usage, It Is Not What I Do Not Understand, That Binds Me To It -- Let These Be The Sandy Foundations Of Falsehoods. What I Revere And Obey In It Is Its Reality, Its Boundless Charity, Its Deep Interior Life, The Rest It Gives To My Mind, The Echo It Returns To My Thoughts, The Perfect Accord It Makes With My Reason Through All Its Representation Of God And His Providence; And The Persuasion And Courage That Come Out Thence To Lead Me Upward And Onward.

We Are Rich Only Through What We Give, And Poor Only Through What We Refuse.

Wit Makes Its Own Welcome, And Levels All Distinction. No Dignity, No Learning, No Force Of Character, Can Make Any Stand Against Good Wit. It Is Like Ice, On Which No Beauty Of Form, No Majesty Of Carriage, Can Plead Any Immunity; They Must Walk Gingerly, According To The Laws Of Ice, Or Down They Must Go, Dignity And All.

Let A Man Behave In His Own House As A Guest.

The Wise Man, The True Friend, The Finished Character, We Seek Everywhere, And Only Find In Fragments.

A Good Indignation Makes An Excellent Speech.

Society Always Consists, In Greatest Part, Of Young And Foolish Persons. The Old, Who Have Seen Through The Hypocrisy Of The Courts And Statesmen, Die, And Leave No Wisdom To Their Sons. They Believe Their Own Newspaper, As Their Fathers Did At Their Age.

When The Boys Come Into My Yard For Leave To Gather Horse-chestnuts, I Own I Enter Into Nature's Game, And Affect To Grant The Permission Reluctantly, Fearing That Any Moment They Will Find Out The Imposture Of That Showy Chaff. But This Tenderness Is Quite Unnecessary; The Enchantments Are Laid On Very Thick. Their Young Life Is Thatched With Them. Bare And Grim To Tears Is The Lot Of The Children In The Hovel I Saw Yesterday; Yet Not The Less They Hang It Round With Frippery Romance, Like The Children Of The Happiest Fortune.

God Screens Us Evermore From Premature Ideas.

A Forte Always Makes A Foible.

What Your Heart Thinks Is Great, Is Great. The Soul's Emphasis Is Always Right.

The Masters Painted For Joy, And Knew Not That Virtue Had Gone Out Of Them. They Could Not Paint The Like In Cold Blood. The Masters Of English Lyric Wrote Their Songs So. It Was A Fine Efflorescence Of Fine Powers.

The Adventitious Beauty Of Poetry May Be Felt In The Greater Delight With A Verse Given In A Happy Quotation Than In The Poem.

Man Carries The World In His Head, The Whole Astronomy And Chemistry Suspended In A Thought. Because The History Of Nature Is Charactered In His Brain, Therefore He Is The Prophet And Discoverer Of Her Secrets. Every Known Fact In Natural Science Was Divined By The Presentiment Of Somebody, Before It Was Actually Verified.

Every Hero Becomes A Bore At Last.

English History Is Aristocracy With The Doors Open. Who Has Courage And Faculty, Let Him Come In.

English History

Two Sorts Of Writers Possess Genius: Those Who Think, And Those Who Cause Others To Think.

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.

Not A Ray Is Dimmed, Not An Atom Worn; Nature's Oldest Force Is As Good As New.

A Good Deal Of Our Politics Is Physiological.

Our People Are Slow To Learn The Wisdom Of Sending Character Instead Of Talent To Congress. Again And Again They Have Sent A Man Of Great Acuteness, A Fine Scholar, A Fine Forensic Orator, And Some Master Of The Brawls Has Crunched Him Up In His Hands Like A Bit Of Paper.

But Man Postpones Or Remembers; He Does Not Live In The Present, But With Reverted Eye Laments The Past, Or, Heedless Of The Riches That Surround Him, Stands On Tiptoe To Foresee The Future. He Cannot Be Happy And Strong Until He Too Lives With Nature In The Present, Above Time.

Love Is Like Wildflowers; It's Often Found In The Most Unlikely Places.

Yet These Uneasy Pleasures And Fine Pains Are For Curiosity, And Not For Life.

Nature Is Upheld By Antagonism. Passions, Resistance, Danger, Are Educators. We Acquire The Strength We Have Overcome.

An Individual Man Is A Fruit Which It Cost All The Foregoing Ages To Form And Ripen. He Is Strong, Not To Do, But To Live; Not In His Arms, But In His Heart; Not As An Agent, But As A Fact.

None Believeth In The Soul Of Man, But Only In Some Man Or Person Old And Departed.

What Is The End Of Human Life? It Is Not, Believe Me, The Chief End Of Man That He Should Make A Fortune And Beget Children Whose End Is Likewise To Make A Fortune, But It Is, In Few Words, That He Should Explore Himself.

The World Proceeds From The Same Spirit As The Body Of Man. It Is A Remoter And Inferior Incarnation Of God, A Projection Of God In The Unconscious.

The Faith That Stands On Authority Is Not Faith.

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.

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.

A Beautiful Woman Is A Practical Poet, Taming Her Savage Mate, Planting Tenderness, Hope And Eloquence In All Whom She Approaches.

Government Has Been A Fossil: It Should Be A Plant.

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

If We Meet No Gods, It Is Because We Harbor None.

If The King Is In The Palace, Nobody Looks At The Walls. It Is When He Is Gone, And The House Is Filled With Grooms And Gazers, That We Turn From The People, To Find Relief In The Majestic Men That Are Suggested By The Pictures And The Architecture.

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.

That Which We Persist In Doing Becomes Easier To Do, Not That The Nature Of The Thing Has Changed But That Our Power To Do Has Increased.

Nature Is Saturated With Deity.

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.

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

Every Great Institution Is The Lengthened Shadow Of A Single Man. His Character Determines The Character Of The Organization.

Great Geniuses Have The Shortest Biographies.

Have Mountains, And Waves, And Skies, No Significance But What We Consciously Give Them, When We Employ Them As Emblems Of Our Thoughts?

Our Expense Is Almost All For Conformity. It Is For Cake That We Run In Debt; 'tis Not The Intellect, Not The Heart, Not Beauty, Not Worship, That Costs So Much.

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.

Sanity Is Very Rare; Every Man Almost And Every Woman Has A Dash Of Madness.

It Seems As If Nature, In Regarding The Geologic Night Behind Her, When, In Five Or Six Millenniums, She Had Turned Out Five Or Six Men, As Homer, Phidias, Menu, And Columbus, Was No Wise Discontented With The Result. These Samples Attested The Virtue Of The Tree.

There Are Only Ten Minutes In The Life Of A Pear When It Is Perfect To Eat.

Heaven Is Large, And Affords Space For All Modes Of Love And Fortitude.

Every Great Man Is Unique.

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

All That Can Be Done For You Is Nothing To What You Can Do For Yourself.

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

In Nature Nothing Can Be Given. All Things Are Sold.

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

As Long As A Man Stands In His Own Way, Everything Seems To Be In His Way.

America Means Opportunity, Freedom, Power.

Age, Like Woman, Requires Fit Surroundings.

On The Other Side, The Conservative Party, Composed Of The Most Moderate, Able, And Cultivated Part Of The Population, Is Timid, And Merely Defensive Of Property. It Vindicates No Right, It Aspires To No Real Good, It Brands No Crime, It Proposes No Generous Policy, It Does Not Build, Nor Write, Nor Cherish The Arts, Nor Foster Religion, Nor Establish Schools, Nor Encourage Science, Nor Emancipate The Slave, Nor Befriend The Poor, Or The Indian, Or The Immigrant.

If You Take In A Lie, You Must Take In All That Belongs To It.

The Greatest Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself.

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

Trending Author

Natalie Goldberg

Category