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Public Opinion, I Am Sorry To Say, Will Bear A Great Deal Of Nonsense. There Is Scarcely Any Absurdity So Gross, Whether In Religion, Politics, Science Or Manners, Which It Will Not Bear.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Public Opinion, I Am

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Public Opinion, I Am Sorry To Say, Will Bear A Great Deal Of Nonsense. There Is Scarcely Any Absurdity So Gross, Whether In Religion, Politics, Science Or Manners, Which It Will Not Bear.

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The True Artist Has The Planet For His Pedestal; The Adventurer, After Years Of Strife, Has Nothing Broader Than His Shoes.

There Is One Other Reason For Dressing Well, Namely That Dogs Respect It, And Will Not Attack You In Good Clothes.

There Was Never A Child So Lovely But His Mother Was Glad To Get Him To Sleep.

I Read The Other Day Some Verses Written By An Eminent Painter Which Were Original And Not Conventional.

Life Is Too Short To Waste.

Life Is Too Short

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

If I Have Lost Confidence In Myself, I Have The Universe Against Me.

If The Black Man Is Feeble And Not Important To The Existing Races, Not On A Parity With The Best Race, The Black Man Must Serve,and Be Exterminated. But If The Black Man Carries In His Bosom An Indispensable Element Of A New And Coming Civilization; For The Sake Of That Element, No Wrong Nor Strength Nor Circumstance Can Hurt Him: He Will Survive And Play His Part. So Now, The Arrival In The World Of Such Men As Toussaint, And The Haytian Heroes, Or Of The Leaders Of Their Race In Barbadoes And Jamaica, Outweighs In Good Omen All The English And American Humanity.

Youth Is Everywhere In Place.

Therefore Is Nature Ever The Ally Of Religion: Lends Her All Her Pomp And Riches To The Religious Sentiment.

Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things.

Solitude Is Impractical And Yet Society Is Fatal.

Genius, Even, As It Is The Greatest Good, Is He Greatest Harm.

Power Is In Nature The Essential Measure Of Right.

Judicious Praise Is To Children What The Sun Is To Flowers. Christian Bovee A Little Praise Goes A Great Ways.

Happy Will The House Be In Which The Relationships Are Formed From Character.

My Angel,-his Name Is Freedom,- Choose Him To Be Your King; He Shall Cut Pathways East And West, And Fend You With His Wing.

We Gain The Strength Of The Temptation We Resist.

If You Cannot Be Free Be As Free As You Can.

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

America Is Not Civil, Whilst Africa Is Barbarous.

The Finest Wits Have Their Sediment.

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.

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

There Is No Country In Which So Absolute A Homage Is Paid To Wealth. In America There Is A Touch Of Shame When A Man Exhibits Theevidences Of Large Property, As If After All It Needed Apology. But The Englishman Has Pure Pride In His Wealth, And Esteems It A Final Certificate. A Coarse Logic Rules Throughout All English Souls: If You Have Merit, Can You Not Show It By Your Good Clothes And Coach And Horses?

Unhappily, No Man Exists Who Has Not In His Own Person Become, To Some Amount, A Stockholder In The Sin, And So Made Himself Liable To A Share In The Expiation.

Do The Thing And You Will Have The Power. But They That Do Not The Thing, Had Not The Power.

There Is No History; Only Biography.

I Am Primarily Engaged To Myself To Be A Public Servant Of All The Gods, To Demonstrate To All Men That There Is Intelligence Andgood Will At The Heart Of All Things, And Even Higher And Yet Higher Leadings. These Are My Engagements; How Can Your Law Further Or Hinder Me In What I Shall Do To Men?

Thou Art To Me A Delicious Torment.

Intemperance Is The Only Vulgarity.

We Can See Well Into The Past; We Can Guess Shrewdly Into The Future, But That Which Is Rolled Up And Muffled In Impenetrable Folds Is Today.

Humility Is The Secret Of The Wise.

What I Must Do Is All That Concerns Me, Not What The People Think.

Colleges Hate Geniuses, Just As Convents Hate Saints.

Criticism Should Not Be Querulous And Wasting, All Knife And Root-puller, But Guiding, Instructive, Inspiring, A South Wind, Not An East Wind.

What King Has He Not Taught State, As Talma Taught Napoleon? What Maiden Has Not Found Him Finer Than Her Delicacy? What Lover Has He Not Outloved? What Sage Has He Not Outseen? What Gentleman Has He Not Instructed In The Rudeness Of His Behavior?

Rings And Other Jewels Are Not Gifts, But Apologies For Gifts. The Only Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself.

What Lies Behind You And What Lies In Front Of You, Pales In Comparison To What Lies Inside Of You.

For, Rightly, Every Man Is A Channel Through Which Heaven Floweth, And, Whilst I Fancied I Was Criticising Him, I Was Censuring Orrather Terminating My Own Soul.

If We Will Not Interfere With Our Thought, But Will Act Entirely, Or See How The Thing Stands In God, We Know The Particular Thing, And Every Thing, And Every Man.

God Hid The Whole World In Thy Heart.

For The Most Part, Only The Light Characters Travel. Who Are You That Have No Task To Keep You At Home?

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

The Poet A Moody Child And Wildly Wise Pursued The Game With Joyful Eyes, Which Chose, Like Meteors, Their Way, And Rived The Dark With Private Ray: They Overleapt The Horizon's Edge, Searched With Apollo's Privilege; Through Man, And Woman, And Sea, And Star, Saw The Dance Of Nature Forward Far; Through Worlds, And Races, And Terms, And Times, Saw Musical Order, And Pairing Rhymes. Olympian Bards Who Sung Divine Ideas Below, Which Always Find Us Young, And Always Keep Us So.

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 Instinct Of The People Is Right.

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

The Ragged Cliff Has Thousand Faces In A Thousand Hours.

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

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.

Overhead The Sanctities Of The Stars Shine Forever-more... Pouring Satire On The Pompous Business Of The Day Which They Close, And Making The Generations Of Men Show Slight And Evanescent.

My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life. It Is For Itself And Not For A Spectacle. I Much Prefer That It Should Be Of A Lower Strain, So It Be Genuine And Equal, Than That It Should Be Glittering And Unsteady.

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

Of Cheerfulness, Or A Good Temper - The More It Is Spent, The More Of It Remains.

Economy Does Not Consist In Saving The Coal, But In Using The Time While It Burns.

Thanks To The Morning Light, Thanks To The Foaming Sea, To The Uplands Of New Hampshire, To The Green-haired Forest Free.

How Much More The Seeker Of Abstract Truth, Who Needs Periods Of Isolation, And Rapt Concentration, And Almost A Going Out Of Thebody To Think!

Shakespeare Will Never Be Made By The Study Of Shakespeare.

The Glance Is Natural Magic. The Mysterious Communication Established Across A House Between Two Entire Strangers, Moves All The Springs Of Wonder.

I Would Have The Studies Elective. Scholarship Is To Be Created Not By Compulsion, But By Awakening A Pure Interest In Knowledge. The Wise Instructor Accomplishes This By Opening To His Pupils Precisely The Attractions The Study Has For Himself. The Marking Is A System For Schools, Not For The College; For Boys, Not For Men; And It Is An Ungracious Work To Put On A Professor.

The Secret Of The World Is The Tie Between Person And Event. Person Makes Event And Event Person.

If With Love Thy Heart Has Burned; If Thy Love Is Unreturned; Hide Thy Grief Within Thy Breast, Though It Tear Thee Unexpressed.

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

Go Oft To The House Of Thy Friend, For Weeds Choke The Unused Path.

He Who Is In Love Is Wise And Is Becoming Wiser, Sees Newly Every Time He Looks At The Object Beloved, Drawing From It With His Eyes And His Mind Those Virtues Which It Possesses.

Really, All Things And Persons Are Related To Us, But According To Our Nature, They Act On Us Not At Once, But In Succession, Andwe Are Made Aware Of Their Presence One At A Time. All Persons, All Things Which We Have Known, Are Here Present, And Many More Than We See; The World Is Full.

No Man Can Quite Emancipate Himself From His Age And Country, Or Produce A Model In Which The Education, The Religion, The Politics, Usages, And Arts, Of His Times Shall Have No Share.

Wealth And Poverty Are Seen For What They Are. It Begins To Be Seen That The Poor Are Only They Who Feel Poor, And Poverty Consists In Feeling Poor. The Rich, As We Reckon Them, And Among Them The Very Rich, In A True Scale Would Be Found Very Indigent And Ragged.

A Poet Is No Rattlebrain, Saying What Comes Uppermost, And, Because He Says Every Thing, Saying, At Last, Something Good; But A Heart In Unison With His Time And Country. There Is Nothing Whimsical Or Fantastic In His Production, But Sweet And Sad Earnest, Freighted With The Weightiest Convictions, And Pointed With The Most Determined Aim Which Any Man Or Class Knows Of In His Times.

Let Us Unlearn Our Wisdom Of The World. Let Us Lie Low In The Lord's Power, And Learn That Truth Alone Makes Rich And Great.

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.

A Beautiful Woman Is A Practical Poet.

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

Cities Force Growth And Make People Talkative And Entertaining, But They Also Make Them Artificial.

Every Man Believes He Has A Greater Possibility.

Our Chief Want In Life, Is, Someone Who Shall Make Us Do What We Can. This Is The Service Of A Friend. With Him We Are Easily Great.

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

Ennui Shortens Life, And Bereaves The Day Of Its Light.

We Are Such Lovers Of Self-reliance, That We Excuse In A Man Many Sins, If He Will Show Us A Complete Satisfaction In His Position, Which Asks No Leave To Be, Of Mine, Or Any Man's Good Opinion.

The Secret Of Success In Society Is A Certain Heartiness And Sympathy. A Man Who Is Not Happy In Company, Cannot Find Any Word In His Memory That Will Fit The Occasion; All His Information Is A Little Impertinent. A Man Who Is Happy There, Finds In Every Turn Of The Conversation Occasions For The Introduction Of What He Has To Say. The Favorites Of Society Are Able Men, And Of More Spirit Than Wit, Who Have No Uncomfortable Egotism, But Who Exactly Fill The Hour And The Company, Contended And Contenting.

There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right.

Every Mind Must Know The Whole Lesson For Itself,-must Go Over The Whole Ground. What It Does Not See, What It Does Not Live, It Will Not Know.

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

Great Men Do Not Content Us. It Is Their Solitude, Not Their Force, That Makes Them Conspicuous.

Guard Well Your Spare Moments. They Are Like Uncut Diamonds. Discard Them And Their Value Will Never Be Known. Improve Them And They Will Become The Brightest Gems In A Useful Life.

The Soul Knows Only The Soul; The Web Of Events Is The Flowing Robe In Which She Is Clothed.

Books Are For Nothing But To Inspire

For Nonconformity The World Will Whip You With Its Displeasure.

Freedom Is The Essence Of This Faith. It Has For Its Object Simply To Make Men Good And Wise. Its Institutions Then Should Be As Flexible As The Wants Of Men. That Form Out Of Which The Life And Suitableness Have Departed Should Be As Worthless In Its Eyes As The Dead Leaves That Are Falling Around Us.

It Is A Fact Often Observed, That Men Have Written Good Verses Under The Inspiration Of Passion, Who Cannot Write Well Under Other Circumstances.

It Has Come To Be Practically A Sort Of Rule In Literature That A Man, Having Once Shown Himself Capable Of Original Writing, Is Entitled Thenceforth To Steal From The Writings Of Others At Discretion.

The Beautiful Is Never Plentiful.

The Church Seems To Totter To Its Fall, Almost All Life Extinct. On This Occasion, Any Complaisance Would Be Criminal Which Told You, Whose Hope And Commission It Is To Preach The Faith Of Christ, That The Faith Of Christ Is Preached.

There Is More Difference In The Quality Of Our Pleasures Than In The Amount.

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

I Find It More Credible, Since It Is Anterior Information, That One Man Should Know Heaven, As The Chinese Say, Than That So Many Men Should Know The World.

People Who Know How To Act Are Never Preachers.

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

He That Writes To Himself Writes To An Eternal Public. That Statement Only Is Fit To Be Made Public, Which You Have Come At In Attempting To Satisfy Your Own Curiosity.

Tis Good-will Makes Intelligence.

Few People Have Any Next, They Live From Hand To Mouth Without A Plan, And Are Always At The End Of Their Line.

If Speculation Tends Thus To A Terrific Unity, In Which All Things Are Absorbed, Action Tends Directly Back To Diversity. The First Is The Course Or Gravitation Of Mind; The Second Is The Power Of Nature. Nature Is Manifold. The Unity Absorbs, And Melts Or Reduces. Nature Opens And Creates. These Two Principles Reappear And Interpenetrate All Things, All Thought; The One, The Many.

Fear, When Your Friends Say To You What You Have Done Well, And Say It Through; But When They Stand With Uncertain Timid Looks Of Respect And Half-dislike, And Must Suspend Their Judgement For Years To Come, You May Begin To Hope.

He Who Is In Love Is Wise And Is Becoming Wiser.

New York Is A Sucked Orange.

The Action Of The Soul Is Oftener In That Which Is Felt And Left Unsaid Than In That Which Is Said In Any Conversation. It Broods Over Every Society, And Men Unconsciously Seek For It In Each Other.

Imitation Cannot Go Above Its Model.

A Self-denial, No Less Austere Than The Saint's, Is Demanded Of The Scholar. He Must Worship Truth, And Forgo All Things For That,and Choose Defeat And Pain, So That His Treasure In Thought Is Thereby Augmented.

Our Life Seems Not Present, So Much As Prospective; Not For The Affairs On Which It Is Wasted, But As A Hint Of This Vast- Flowingvigor.

The Measure Of A Master Is His Success In Bringing All Men Around To His Opinion Twenty Years Later.

Congratulations

There Is Nothing But Is Related To Us, Nothing That Does Not Interest Us,--kingdom, College, Tree, Horse, Or Iron Show,--the Rootsof All Things Are In Man.

A Hero Is A Man Who Is Afraid To Run Away.

I Must Feel Pride In My Friend's Accomplishments As If They Were Mine,--and A Property In His Virtues. I Feel As Warmly When He Ispraised, As The Lover When He Hears Applause Of His Engaged Maiden.

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

The Sky Is The Ultimate Art Gallery Just Above Us.

The Ancients Called Beauty The Flowering Of Virtue.

How Much Of Human Life Is Lost In Waiting.

I Ought To Go Upright And Vital, And Speak The Rude Truth In All Ways.

The Eyes Of Men Converse As Much As Their Tongues, With The Advantage That The Ocular Dialect Needs No Dictionary, But Is Understood All The World Over.

The Good Husband Finds Method As Efficient In The Packing Of Fire-wood In A Shed, Or In The Harvesting Of Fruits In The Cellar, As In Peninsular Campaigns Or The Files Of The Department Of State.

Every Friend Whom Not Thy Fantastic Will But The Great And Tender Heart In Thee Craveth, Shall Lock Thee In His Embrace. And This Because The Heart In Thee Is The Heart Of All; Not A Valve, Not A Wall, Not An Intersection Is There Anywhere In Nature, But One Blood Rolls Uninterruptedly In Endless Circulation Through All Men, As The Water Of The Globe Is All One Sea, And, Truly Seen, Its Tide Is One.

What Torments Of Grief You Endured, From Evils That Never Arrived

The Brevity Of Human Life Gives A Melancholy To The Profession Of The Architect.

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

We Are A Puny And Fickle Folk. Avarice, Hesitation, And Following Are Our Diseases.

It Is The Duty Of Men To Judge Men Only By Their Actions. Our Faculties Furnish Us With No Means Of Arriving At The Motive, The Character, The Secret Self. We Call The Tree Good From Its Fruits, And The Man, From His Works.

The Resources Of The Scholar Are Proportioned To His Confidence In The Attributes Of The Intellect.

I Hate The Giving Of The Hand Unless The Whole Man Accompanies It.

Away With This Hurrah Of Masses, And Let Us Have The Considerate Vote Of Single Men.

The Highest Proof Of Civility Is That The Whole Public Action Of The State Is Directed On Securing The Greatest Good Of The Greatest Number.

Let The Man Stand On His Feet. Let Religion Cease To Be Occasional; And The Pulses Of Thought That Go To The Borders Of The Universe, Let Them Proceed From The Bosom Of The Household.

Shakspeare Is The Only Biographer Of Shakspeare; And Even He Can Tell Nothing, Except To The Shakspeare In Us; That Is, To Our Most Apprehensive And Sympathetic Hour.

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.

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.

Finish Each Day And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could. Some Blunders And Absurdities No Doubt Crept In; Forget Them As Soon As You Can. Tomorrow Is A New Day; Begin It Well And Serenely And With Too High A Spirit To Be Encumbered With Your Old Nonsense.

Not The Sun Or Summer Alone, But Every Hour And Season Yields Its Tribute Of Delight.

To Clothe The Fiery Thought In Simple Words Succeeds, For Still The Craft Of Genius Is To Mask A King In Weeds.

When Some External Event Raises Your Spirits And You Think Good Days Are Preparing For You, Do Not Believe It. It Can Never Be So. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

The Thing Done Avails, And Not What Is Said About It.

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 Cannot Forgive A Scholar His Homeless Despondency.

And In Cases Where Profound Conviction Has Been Wrought, The Eloquent Man Is He Who Is No Beautiful Speaker, But Who Is Inwardly Drunk With A Certain Belief. It Agitates And Tears Him, And Perhaps Almost Bereaves Him Of The Power Of Articulation.

It Is Vain To Keep A Secret From One Who Has A Right To Know It. It Will Tell Itself.

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

From Within Or From Behind, A Light Shines Through Us Upon Things, And Makes Us Aware That We Are Nothing, But The Light Is All.

We, As We Read, Must Become Greeks, Romans, Turks, Priest And King, Martyr And Executioner; Must Fasten These Images To Some Reality In Our Secret Experience, Or We Shall Learn Nothing Rightly.

Two Touch The String, The Harp Is Dumb.

A Man Is Like A Bit Of Labrador Spar, Which Has No Lustre As You Turn It In Your Hand Until You Come To A Particular Angle; Then It Shows Deep And Beautiful Colors. There Is No Adaptation Or Universal Applicability In Men, But Each Has His Special Talent, And The Mastery Of Successful Men Consists In Adroitly Keeping Themselves Where And When That Turn Shall Be Oftenest To Be Practiced.

Life Has No Memory. That Which Proceeds In Succession Might Be Remembered, But That Which Is Coexistent, Or Ejaculated From A Deeper Cause, As Yet Far From Being Conscious, Knows Not Its Own Tendency.

The Solitary Knows The Essence Of The Thought, The Scholar In Society Only Its Fair Face.

He Is Rich Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded With Fret And Anxiety.

Creative Force, Like A Musical Composer, Goes On Unweariedly Repeating A Simple Air Or Theme, Now High, Now Low, In Solo, In Chorus, Ten Thousand Times Reverberated, Till It Fills Earth And Heaven With The Chant.

I Honor Health As The First Muse, And Sleep As The Condition Of Health. Sleep Benefits Mainly By The Sound Health It Produces; Incidentally Also By Dreams, Into Whose Farrago A Divine Lesson Is Sometimes Slipped.

The Counting-room Maxims Liberally Expounded Are Laws Of The Universe. The Merchant's Economy Is A Coarse Symbol Of The Soul's Economy. It Is, To Spend For Power, And Not For Pleasure.

The Terrors Of The Child Are Quite Reasonable, And Add To His Loveliness; For His Utter Ignorance And Weakness, And His Enchanting Indignation On Such A Small Basis Of Capital Compel Every Bystander To Take His Part.

We Expect A Great Man To Be A Good Reader.

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

Native American

Always Pay; For First Or Last You Must Pay Your Entire Debt.

Only By Obedience To His Genius; Only By The Freest Activity In The Way Constitutional To Him, Does An Angel Seem To Arise Beforea Man, And Lead Him By The Hand Out Of All The Wards Of The Prison.

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

I Do Not Wish To Remove From My Present Prison To A Prison A Little Larger. I Wish To Break All Prisons.

O Day Of Days When We Can Read! The Reader And The Book, Either Without The Other Is Naught.

The Energetic Action Of The Times Develops Individualism, And The Religious Appear Isolated. I Esteem This A Step In The Right Direction. Heaven Deals With Us On No Representative System. Souls Are Not Saved In Bundles.

Isolation Must Precede True Society.

Conversation Is The Laboratory And Workshop Of The Student.

A Man Is Usually More Careful Of His Money Than He Is Of His Principles.

Sometimes A Scream Is Better Than A Thesis.

Thus Inevitably Does The Universe Wear Our Color, And Every Object Fall Successively Into The Subject Itself. The Subject Exists, The Subject Enlarges; All Things Sooner Or Later Fall Into Place. As I Am, So I See; Use What Language We Will, We Can Never Say Anything But What We Are.

I Do Not Count The Hours I Spend In Wandering By The Sea; The Forest Is My Loyal Friend, Like God It Useth Me.

All Men In The Abstract Are Just And Good.

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.

In Every Situation Do The Thing You Fear. If You Do The Thing You Fear, The Death Of Fear Is Certain.

The Civilized Man Has Built A Coach, But Has Lost The Use Of His Feet.

Every Really Able Man, In Whatever Direction He Works - A Man Of Large Affairs, An Inventor, A Statesman, An Orator, A Poet, A Painter - If You Talk Sincerely With Him, Considers His Work, However Much Admired, As Far Short Of What It Should Be. What Is This Better, This Flying Ideal, But The Perpetual Promise Of His Creator?

The Simplest Words,--we Do Not Know What They Mean Except When We Love And Aspire.

If The Red Slayer Think He Slays, Or If The Slain Think He Is Slain, They Know Not Well The Subtle Ways, I Keep And Pass And Turn Again.

Broader And Deeper We Must Write Our Annals, From An Ethical Reformation, From An Influx Of The Ever New, Ever Sanative Conscience, If We Would Trulier Express Our Central And Wide-related Nature, Instead Of This Old Chronology Of Selfishness And Pride To Which We Have Too Long Lent Our Eyes. Already That Day Exists For Us, Shines In On Us At Unawares, But The Path Of Science And Of Letters Is Not The Way Into Nature. The Idiot, The Indian, The Child, And Unschooled Farmer's Boy, Stand Nearer To The Light By Which Nature Is To Be Read, Than The Dissector Or The Antiquary.

Good Criticism Is Very Rare And Always Precious.

When We Are Exalted By Ideas, We Do Not Owe This To Plato, But To The Idea, To Which Also Plato Was Debtor.

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions.

Will And Determination

I Am Ready To Die Out Of Nature, And Be Born Again Into This New Yet Unapproachable America I Have Found In The West.

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

The Only Prudence In Life Is Concentration.

Focus And Concentration

To Say Then, The Majority Are Wicked, Means No Malice, No Bad Heart In The Observer, But, Simply That The Majority Are Unripe, Andhave Not Yet Come To Themselves, Do Not Yet Know Their Opinion.

It Is The Property Of The Religious Spirit To Be The Most Refining Of All Influences. No External Advantages, No Culture Of The Tastes, No Habit Of Command, No Association With The Elegant, Or Even Depth Of Affection, Can Bestow That Delicacy And That Grandeur Of Bearing Which Belong Only To The Mind Accustomed To Celestial Conversation,--all Else Is But Gilt And Cosmetics, Beside This, As Expressed In Every Look And Gesture.

We Do Not Yet Trust The Unknown Powers Of Thought. Whence Came All These Tools, Inventions, Book Laws, Parties, Kingdoms? Out Of The Invisible World, Through A Few Brains. The Arts And Institutions Of Men Are Created Out Of Thought. The Powers That Make The Capitalist Are Metaphysical, The Force Of Method And Force Of Will Makes Trade, And Builds Towns.

Crime And Punishment Grow Out Of One Stem.

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

There Is Nothing In History To Parallel The Influence Of Jesus Christ.

There Are Two Laws Discretenot Reconciled,law For Man, And Law For Thing.

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

When I Bought My Farm, I Did Not Know What A Bargain I Had In The Bluebirds, Daffodils And Thrushes; As Little Did I Know What Sublime Mornings And Sunsets I Was Buying.

The Condition Which High Friendship Demands Is Ability To Do Without It.

The Heroic Soul Does Not Sell Its Justice And Its Nobleness. It Does Not Ask To Dine Nicely And To Sleep Warm. The Essence Of Greatness Is The Perception That Virtue Is Enough. Poverty Is Its Ornament. It Does Not Need Plenty, And Can Very Well Abide Its Loss.

There Are As Many Pillows Of Illusion As Flakes In A Snow-storm. We Wake From One Dream Into Another Dream.

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

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.

What You Are Shouts At Me So Loudly That I Can't Hear A Word You Say.

Who Looks Upon A River In A Meditative Hour And Is Not Reminded Of The Flux Of All Things?

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