Background Image

...

Rude Poets Of The Tavern Hearth, Squandering Your Unquoted Mirth, Which Keeps The Ground, And Never Soars, While Jake Retorts, And Reuben Roars; Tough And Screaming, As Birch-bark, Goes Like Bullet To Its Mark; While The Solid Curse And Jeer Never Balk The Waiting Ear.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Rude Poets Of The

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Rude Poets Of The Tavern Hearth, Squandering Your Unquoted Mirth, Which Keeps The Ground, And Never Soars, While Jake Retorts, And Reuben Roars; Tough And Screaming, As Birch-bark, Goes Like Bullet To Its Mark; While The Solid Curse And Jeer Never Balk The Waiting Ear.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

In Actions Of Enthusiasm, This Drawback Appears: But In Those Lower Activities, Which Have No Higher Aim Than To Make Us More Comfortable And More Cowardly, In Actions Of Cunning, Actions That Steal And Lie, Actions That Divorce The Speculative From The Practical Faculty, And Put A Ban On Reason And Sentiment, There Is Nothing Else But Drawback And Negation.

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.

I Look On Trade And Every Mechanical Craft As Education Also. But Let Me Discriminate What Is Precious Herein. There Is In Each Ofthese Works An Act Of Invention, An Intellectual Step, Or Short Series Of Steps Taken; That Act Or Step Is The Spiritual Act; All The Rest Is Mere Repetition Of The Same A Thousand Times.

The Rule For Hospitality And Irish "help," Is, To Have The Same Dinner Every Day Throughout The Year. At Last, Mrs. O'shaughnessylearns To Cook It To A Nicety, The Host Learns To Carve It, And The Guests Are Well Served.

For The World Was Built In Order Around The Atoms March In Tune; Rhyme The Pipe, And Time The Warder, The Sun Obeys Them, And The Moon.

Every True Man Is A Cause, A Country, And An Age; Requires Infinite Spaces And Numbers And Time Fully To Accomplish His Design;--and Posterity Seem To Follow His Steps As A Train Of Clients.

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

Life Is In Short Cycles Or Periods; We Are Quickly Tired, But We Have Rapid Rallies. A Man Is Spent By His Work, Starved, Prostrate; He Will Not Lift His Hand To Save His Life; He Can Never Think More. He Sinks Into Deep Sleep And Wakes With Renewed Youth, With Hope, Courage, Fertile In Resources, And Keen For Daring Adventure.

The Secret Of Genius Is To Suffer No Fiction To Exist For Us; To Realize All That We Know; In The High Refinement Of Modern Life,in Arts, In Sciences, In Books, In Men, To Exact Good Faith, Reality, And A Purpose; And First, Last, Midst, And Without End, To Honor Every Truth By Use.

I Give You Joy Of Your Free And Brave Thought. I Have Great Joy In It. I Find Incomparable Things Said Incomparably Well, As They Must Be. I Find The Courage Of Treatment Which So Delights Us, And Which Large Perception Only Can Inspire.

There Is Never A Beginning, There Is Never An End, To The Inexplicable Continuity Of This Web Of God, But Always Circular Power Returning Into Itself.

Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things; Each Once A Stroke Of Genius Or Of Love, Now Repeated And Hardened Into Usage.

The True Preacher Can Be Known By This, That He Deals Out To The People His Life,--life Passed Through The Fire Of Thought.

The Secret Of Fortune Is Joy In Our Hands.

The Essence Of Friendship Is Entireness, A Total Magnanimity And Trust. It Must Not Surmise Or Provide For Infirmity. It Treats Its Object As A God, That It Might Deify Both.

A Man Cannot Speak But He Judges Himself

A Man Is Like A Bit Of Labrador Spar, Which Has No Luster As You Turn It In Your Hand, Until You Come To A Particular Angle; Then It Shows Deep And Beautiful Colors.

Let It Suffice That In The Light Of These Two Facts, Namely, That The Mind Is One, And That Nature Is Its Correlative, History Isto Be Read And Written.

Enthusiasm Is The Leaping Lightning, Not To Be Measured By The Horse-power Of The Understanding

To The Body And Mind Which Have Been Cramped By Noxious Work Or Company, Nature Is Medicinal And Restores Their Tone. The Tradesman, The Attorney Comes Out Of The Din And Craft Of The Street And Sees The Sky And The Woods, And Is A Man Again. In Their Eternal Calm, He Finds Himself.

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

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. . . .

The People Fancy They Hate Poetry, And They Are All Poets And Mystics.

When We Have Arrived At The Question, The Answer Is Already Near.

The Good Judge Is Not He Who Does Hair-splitting Justice To Every Allegation, But Who, Aiming At Substantial Justice, Rules Something Intelligible Of The Guidance Of Suitors.

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.

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.

The Greatest Genius Is The Most Indebted Person.

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.

The Reliance On Authority Measures The Decline Of Religion, The Withdrawal Of The Soul.

Better Be A Nettle In The Side Of Your Friend Than His Echo.

The Ancients Called Beauty The Flowering Of Virtue.

A Man Of Genius Is Privileged Only As Far As He Is Genius. His Dullness Is As Insupportable As Any Other Dullness.

It Is Dainty To Be Sick If You Have Leisure And Convenience For It.

Because The Soul Is Progressive, It Never Quite Repeats Itself, But In Every Act Attempts The Production Of A New And Fairer Whole.

For Flowers That Bloom About Our Feet; For Tender Grass, So Fresh, So Sweet; For Song Of Bird, And Hum Of Bee; For All Things Fair We Hear Or See, Father In Heaven, We Thank Thee!

Every Day, A Little Sadder, A Little Madder. Will Someone Get Me A Ladder?

There Is No True Orator Who Is Not A Hero.

The Lover Of Letters Loves Power Too.

The State Of Society Is One In Which The Members Have Suffered Amputation From The Trunk, And Strut About So Many Walking Monsters, - A Good Finger, A Neck, A Stomach, An Elbow, But Never A Man. Man Is Thus Metamorphosed Into A Thing, Into Many Things. The Planter, Who Is Man Sent Out Into The Field To Gather Food, Is Seldom Cheered By Any Idea Of The True Dignity Of His Ministry. He Sees His Bushel And His Cart, And Nothing Beyond, And Sinks Into The Farmer, Instead Of Man On The Farm.

Examples Are Cited By Soldiers, Of Men Who Have Seen The Cannon Pointed, And The Fire Given To It, And Who Have Stepped Aside From He Path Of The Ball. The Terrors Of The Storm Are Chiefly Confined To The Parlour And The Cabin.

Yourself A Newborn Bard Of The Holy Ghost, Cast Behind You All Conformity, And Acquaint Men At First Hand With Deity.

A Man Should Learn To Detect And Watch That Gleam Of Light Which Flashes Across His Mind From Within, More Than The Lustre Of The Firmament Of Bards And Sages. Yet He Dismisses Without Notice His Thought, Because It Is His. In Every Work Of Genius We Recognize Our Own Rejected Thoughts: They Come Back To Us With A Certain Alienated Majesty.

Let A Stoic Open The Resources Of Man, And Tell Men They Are Not Leaning Willows, But Can And Must Detach Themselves; That With The Exercise Of Self-trust, New Powers Shall Appear.

England Produces Under Favorable Conditions Of Ease And Culture The Finest Women In The World. And, As The Men Are Affectionate And True-hearted, The Women Inspire And Refine Them.

A Man Is A God In Ruins. When Men Are Innocent, Life Shall Be Longer, And Shall Pass Into The Immortal, As Gently As We Awake From Dreams.

That You Are Fair Or Wise Is Vain, Or Strong, Or Rich, Or Generous; You Must Have Also The Untaught Strain That Sheds Beauty On The Rose.

A Beautiful Woman Is A Practical Poet.

The Best Effort Of A Fine Person Is Felt After We Have Left Their Presence.

Character Is Higher Than Intellect... A Great Soul Will Be Strong To Live, As Well As Strong To Think.

Who Heeds The Waste Abyss Of Possibility? The Ocean Is Everywhere The Same, But It Has No Character Until Seen With The Shore Or The Ship.

Good And Bad Are But Names Very Readily Transferable To That Or This.

Talent Finds Its Models, Methods, And Ends In Society, Exists For Exhibition, And Goes To The Soul Only For Power To Work. Genius Is Its Own End, And Draws Its Means And The Style Of Its Architecture From Within.

Everything Has Its Price - And If That Price Is Not Paid, Not That Thing But Something Else Is Obtained... It Is Impossible To Get Anything Without This Price.

Genius Is Always Sufficiently The Enemy Of Genius By Over Influence. The Literature Of Every Nation Bear Me Witness. The English Dramatic Poets Have Shakspearized Now For Two Hundred Years.

Taking To Pieces Is The Trade Of Those Who Cannot Construct.

Things Are In The Saddle. And Ride Mankind.

Transcendentalism

Almost Every Man We Meet Requires Some Civility; Requires To Be Humored; - He Has Some Fame, Some Talent, Some Whim Of Religion Or Philanthropy In His Head That Is Not To Be Questioned, And Which Spoils All Conversation With Him. But A Friend Is A Sane Man Who Exercises Not My Ingenuity, But Me.

The Time Is Coming When All Men Will See That The Gift Of God To The Soul Is Not A Vaunting, Overpowering, Excluding Sanctity, Buta Sweet, Natural Goodness, A Goodness Like Thine And Mine, And That So Invites Thine And Mine To Be And To Grow.

Religious Literature Has Eminent Examples, And If We Run Over Our Private List Of Poets, Critics, Philanthropists And Philosophers, We Shall Find Them Infected With This Dropsy And Elephantiasis, Which We Ought To Have Tapped.

Men Are Not Philosophers, But Are Rather Very Foolish Children, Who, By Reason Of Their Partiality, See Everything In The Most Absurd Manner, And Are The Victims At All Times Of The Nearest Object. There Is Even No Philosopher Who Is A Philosopher At All Times. Our Experience, Our Perception Is Conditioned By The Need To Acquire In Parts And In Succession, That Is, With Every Truth A Certain Falsehood.

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

Expediency Of Literature, Reason Of Literature, Lawfulness Of Writing Down A Thought, Is Questioned; Much Is To Say On Both Sides,and, While The Fight Waxes Hot, Thou, Dearest Scholar, Stick To Thy Foolish Task, Add A Line Every Hour, And Between Whiles Add A Line.

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?

The Intelligent Have A Right Over The Ignorant, Namely, The Right Of Instructing Them. The Right Punishment Of One Out Of Tune, Isto Make Him Play In Tune; The Fine Which The Good, Refusing To Govern, Ought To Pay, Is, To Be Governed By A Worse Man; That His Guards Shall Not Handle Gold And Silver, But Shall Be Instructed That There Is Gold And Silver In Their Souls, Which Will Make Men Willing To Give Them Every Thing Which They Need.

A Beautiful Soul Always Dwells In A Beautiful World.

Culture Is One Thing And Varnish Is Another.

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.

A Day For Toil, An Hour For Sport, But For A Friend Is Life Too Short.

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.

If With Love Thy Heart Has Burned; If Thy Love Is Unreturned; Hide Thy Grief Within Thy Breast, Though It Tear Thee Unexpressed; For When Love Has Once Departed From The Eyes Of The False-hearted, And One By One Has Torn Off Quite The Bandages Of Purple Light; Though Thou Wert The Loveliest Form The Soul Had Ever Dressed, Thou Shalt Seem, In Each Reply, A Vixen To His Altered Eye; Thy Softest Pleadings Seem Too Bold, Thy Praying Lute Will Seem To Scold; Though Thou Kept The Straightest Road, Yet Thou Errest Far And Broad.

There Are Faces So Fluid With Expression, So Flushed And Rippled By The Play Of Thought, That We Can Hardly Find What The Mere Features Really Are. When The Delicious Beauty Of Lineament Loses Its Power, It Is Because A More Delicious Beauty Has Appeared, That An Interior And Durable Form Has Been Disclosed.

The Martyr Cannot Be Dishonored. Every Lash Inflicted Is A Tongue Of Fame; Every Prison A More Illustrious Abode.

We Lie In The Lap Of Immense Intelligence.

Don't Set Out To Teach Theism From Your Natural History... You Spoil Both.

Science And Religion

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

Law Of Attraction

We Love Force And We Care Very Little How It Is Exhibited.

Motion Or Change, And Identity Or Rest, Are The First And Second Secrets Of Nature: Motion And Rest. The Whole Code Of Her Laws May Be Written On The Thumbnail, Or The Signet Of A Ring.

God Has Delegated Himself To A Million Deputies.

The Conscious Utterance Of Thought, By Speech Or Action, To Any End, Is Art.

Every Ship Is A Romantic Object, Except That We Sail In.

In Talking With Scholars, I Observe That They Lost On Ruder Companions Those Years Of Boyhood Which Alone Could Give Imaginative Literature A Religious And Infinite Quality In Their Esteem.

The Best Lightning Rod For Your Protection Is Your Own Spine.

There Is No Luck In Literary Reputation. They Who Make Up The Final Verdict Upon Every Book Are Not The Partial And Noisy Readers Of The Hour When It Appears; But A Court As Of Angels, A Public Not To Be Bribed, Not To Be Entreated, And Not To Be Overawed, Decides Upon Every Man's Title To Fame.

The World Is His Who Has Money To Go Over It.

The University Must Be Retrospective. The Gale That Gives Direction To The Vanes On All Its Towers Blows Out Of Antiquity.

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.

Trust Men And They Will Be True To You; Treat Them Greatly And They Will Show Themselves Great.

Philanthropies And Charities Have A Certain Air Of Quackery.

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.

Providence Has A Wild, Rough, Incalculable Road To Its End, And It Is Of No Use To Try To Whitewash Its Huge, Mixed Instrumentalities, Or To Dress Up That Terrific Benefactor In A Clean Shirt And White Neckcloth Of A Student In Divinity.

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

A Cynic Can Chill And Dishearten With A Single Word.

Men Of Sense Esteem Wealth To Be The Assimilation Of Nature To Themselves, The Converting Of The Sap And Juices Of The Planet To The Incarnation And Nutriment Of Their Design.

I Shun Father And Mother And Wife And Brother When My Genius Calls Me. I Would Write On The Lintels Of The Door-post, Whim. I Hope That It Is Somewhat Better Than Whim At Last, But We Cannot Spend The Day In Explanation.

Power Is In Nature The Essential Measure Of Right.

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

The Philosophy Of Waiting Is Sustained By All The Oracles Of The Universe.

The Soul Lets No Man Go Without Some Visitations And Holy-days Of A Diviner Presence.

Love And You Shall Be Loved. All Love Is Mathematically Just, As Much As Two Sides Of An Algebraic Equation.

The Only Money Of God Is God. He Pays Never With Any Thing Less, Or Any Thing Else.

Fate Is Nothing But The Deeds Committed In A Prior State Of Existence.

Go Where He Will, The Wise Man Is At Home, His Hearth The Earth, His Hall The Azure Dome.

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

We First Share The Life By Which Things Exist, And Afterwards See Them As Appearances In Nature, And Forget That We Have Shared Their Cause.

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.

Genius Seems To Consistent Merely In Trueness Of Sight.

Truth Is Always Present; It Only Needs To Lift The Iron Lids Of The Mind's Eye To Read Its Oracles.

There Is A Class Of Persons To Whom By All Spiritual Affinity I Am Bought And Sold; For Them I Will Go To Prison, If Need Be; But Your Miscellaneous Popular Charities; The Education At College Of Fools; The Building Of Meeting-houses To The Vain End To Which Many Now Stand; Alms To Sots; And The Thousandfold Relief Societies; - Though I Confess With Shame I Sometimes Succumb And Give The Dollar, It Is A Wicked Dollar Which By And By I Shall Have The Manhood To Withhold.

In A World Of Infinite Choice People Are Struggling To Figure Out What To Do.

Nature Tells Every Secret Once.

The Charm Of The Best Courages Is That They Are Inventions, Inspirations, Flashes Of Genius.

There Is A Capacity Of Virtue In Us, And There Is A Capacity Of Vice To Make Your Blood Creep.

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

Life Is A Search After Power.

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

There Is More In Every Person's Soul Than We Think.

His Heart Was As Great As The World, But There Was No Room In It To Hold The Memory Of A Wrong.

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.

Every Discourse Is An Approximate Answer: But It Is Of Small Consequence, That We Do Not Get It Into Verbs And Nouns, Whilst It Abides For Contemplation Forever.

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

Philosophically Considered, The Universe Is Composed Of Nature And The Soul.

The Order Of Things Consents To Virtue.

The Field Cannot Be Seen From Within The Field.

If You Would Not Be Known To Do Anything, Never Do It.

The Maker Of A Sentence Launches Out Into The Infinite.

Creative Writing

Sincerity Is The Highest Complement You Can Pay

When A Happy Person Comes Into The Room, It Is As If Another Candle Has Been Lit.

Why Should I Cumber Myself With Regrets That The Receiver Is Not Capacious? It Never Troubles The Sun That Some Of His Rays Fall Wide And Vain Into Ungrateful Space, And Only A Small Part On The Reflecting Planet. Let Your Greatness Educate The Crude And Cold Companion.

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

All Life Is An Experiment. The More Experiments You Make The Better.

In My Dealing With My Child, My Latin And Greek, My Accomplishments And My Money Stead Me Nothing; But As Much Soul As I Have Avails. If I Am Wilful, He Sets His Will Against Mine, One For One, And Leaves Me, If I Please, The Degradation Of Beating Him By My Superiority Of Strength. But If I Renounce My Will, And Act For The Soul, Setting That Up As Umpire Between Us Two, Out Of His Young Eyes Looks The Same Soul; He Reveres And Loves With Me.

In Strict Science, All Persons Underlie The Same Condition Of An Infinite Remoteness. Shall We Fear To Cool Our Love By Mining Forthe Metaphysical Foundation Of This Elysian Temple? Shall I Not Be As Real As The Things I See? If I Am, I Shall Not Fear To Know Them For What They Are.

Far Off, Men Swell, Bully, And Threaten; Bring Them Hand To Hand, And They Are Feeble Folk.

All The Great Ages Have Been Ages Of Belief.

There Is A Remedy For Every Wrong And A Satisfaction For Every Soul.

You Send Your Child To The Schoolmaster, But 'tis The Schoolboys Who Educate Him. You Send Him To The Latin Class, But Much Of Histuition Comes, On His Way To School, From The Shop- Windows.

The Dearest Events Are Summer-rain.

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.

I Count Him A Great Man Who Inhabits A Higher Sphere Of Thought, Into Which Other Men Rise With Labor And Difficulty; He Has But To Open His Eyes To See Things In A True Light, And In Large Relations; Whilst They Must Make Painful Corrections, And Keep A Vigilant Eye On Many Sources Of Error.

That Which Shows God In Me, Fortifies Me. That Which Shows God Out Of Me, Makes Me A Wart And A Wen.

Positive Atheism

In The Uttermost Meaning Of The Words, Thought Is Devout, And Devotion Is Thought. Deep Calls Unto Deep.

It Is For Want Of Self-culture That The Superstition Of Travelling, Whose Idols Are Italy, England, Egypt, Retains Its Fascinationfor All Educated Americans.

What Is The Hardest Task In The World? To Think.

Desire Is Possibility Seeking Expression.

Venus, When Her Son Was Lost, Cried Him Up And Down The Coast, In Hamlets, Palaces, And Parks, And Told The Truant By His Marks,- Golden Curls, And Quiver, And Bow.

Under The Dominion Of An Idea, Which Possesses The Minds Of Multitudes, As Civil Freedom, Or The Religious Sentiment, The Power Ofpersons Are No Longer Subjects Of Calculation. A Nation Of Men Unanimously Bent On Freedom, Or Conquest, Can Easily Confound The Arithmetic Of Statists, And Achieve Extravagant Actions, Out Of All Proportion To Their Means; As, The Greeks, The Saracens, The Swiss, The Americans, And The French Have Done.

I Appeal Now To The Convictions Of The Communicants, And Ask Such Persons Whether They Have Not Been Occasionally Conscious Of A Painful Confusion Of Thought Between The Worship Due To God And The Commemoration Due To Christ.

Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty.

The Intellectual Man Requires A Fine Bait; The Sots Are Easily Amused. But Everybody Is Drugged With His Own Frenzy, And The Pageant Marches At All Hours, With Music And Banner And Badge.

The Objection To Conforming To Usages That Have Become Dead To You Is, That It Scatters Your Force.

The Only Joy In His Being Mine, Is That The Not Mine Is Mine.

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.

People Destined To Meet Will Do So, Apparently By Chance, At Precisely The Right Moment.

We Have A Great Deal More Kindness Than Is Ever Spoken. The Whole Human Family Is Bathed With An Element Of Love Like A Fine Ether. How Many Persons We Meet In Houses, Whom We Scarcely Speak To, Whom Yet We Honor And Who Honor Us! How Many We See In The Street, Or Sit With In Church, Whom Though Silently, We Warmly Rejoice To Be With! Read The Language Of These Wandering Eye-beams. The Heart Knoweth.

A Man Cannot Free Himself By Any Self-denying Ordinances, Neither By Water Nor Potatoes, Nor By Violent Possibilities, By Refusing To Swear, Refusing To Pay Taxes, By Going To Jail, Or By Taking Another Man's Crops Or Squatting On His Land. By None Of These Ways Can He Free Himself; No, Nor By Paying His Debts With Money; Only By Obedience To His Own Genius.

In Self-trust All The Virtues Are Comprehended.

One More Royal Trait Properly Belongs To The Poet. I Mean His Cheerfulness, Without Which No Man Can Be A Poet,--for Beauty Is His Aim. He Loves Virtue, Not For Its Obligation, But For Its Grace; He Delights In The World, In Man, In Woman, For The Lovely Light That Sparkles From Them. Beauty, The Spirit Of Joy And Hilarity, He Sheds Over The Universe.

You Cannot Do Wrong Without Suffering Wrong.

So All That Is Said Of The Wise Man By Stoic Or Oriental Or Modern Essayist, Describes To Each Reader His Own Idea, Describes His Unattained But Attainable Self.

The Greater Speed And Success That Distinguish The Planting Of The Human Race In This Country, Over All Other Plantations In History, Owe Themselves Mainly To The New Subdivisions Of The State Into Small Corporations Of Land And Power.

A Nation Never Falls But By Suicide.

I Do Not Wish To Please Him; I Wish That He Should Wish To Please Me.

Success Goes Thus Invariably With A Certain Plus Or Positive Power: An Ounce Of Power Must Balance An Ounce Of Weight.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage.

Men Cease To Interest Us When We Find Their Limitations. The Only Sin Is Limitation. As Soon As You Once Come Up With A Man's Limitations, It Is All Over With Him.

All Men, In The Abstract, Are Just And Good; What Hinders Them, In The Particular, Is, The Momentary Predominance Of The Finite And Individual Over The General Truth. The Condition Of Our Incarnation In A Private Self, Seems To Be, A Perpetual Tendency To Prefer The Private Law, To Obey The Private Impulse, To The Exclusion Of The Law Of The Universal Being.

This Book Of Montaigne The World Has Endorsed By Translating It Into All Tongues.

Heaven Walks Among Us Ordinarily Muffled In Such Triple Or Tenfold Disguises That The Wisest Are Deceived And No One Suspects The Days To Be Gods.

I Have Heard That Death Takes Us Away From Ill Things, Not From Good. I Have Heard That When We Pronounce The Name Of Man We Pronounce The Belief Of Immortality.

Nature Does Not Cocker Us: We Are Children, Not Pets: She Is Not Fond: Everything Is Dealt To Us Without Fear Or Favor, After Severe Universal Laws.

The Glory Of Friendship Is Not The Outstretched Hand, Not The Kindly Smile, Nor The Joy Of Companionship; It Is The Spiritual Inspiration That Comes To One When You Discover That Someone Else Believes In You And Is Willing To Trust You With A Friendship.

Common Sense Is As Rare As Genius.

It Is So Wonderful To Our Neurologists That A Man Can See Without His Eyes, That It Does Not Occur To Them That Is Just As Wonderful That He Should See With Them; And 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.

Science Was False By Being Unpoetical. It Assumed To Explain A Reptile Or A Mollusk, And Isolated It-which Is Hunting For Life In Graveyards. Reptile Or Mollusk Or Man Or Angel Only Exists In System, In Relation.

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.

There Is No Eloquence Without A Man Behind It.

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 World Leaves No Track In Space, And The Greatest Action Of Man No Mark In The Vast Idea.

If I Should Go Out Of Church Whenever I Hear A False Sentiment, I Could Never Stay There Five Minutes.

The Power Of A Man Increases Steadily By Continuance In One Direction. He Becomes Acquainted With The Resistances And With His Own Tools; Increases His Skill And Strength And Learns The Favorable Moments And Favorable Accidents.

The Affirmative Of Affirmatives... Is Love.

A Few Years Ago, The Liberal Churches Complained That The Calvinistic Church Denied To Them The Name Of Christian. I Think The Complaint Was Confession; A Religious Church Would Not Complain.

In Science We Have To Consider Two Things: Power And Circumstance.

Let The Reader Find That He Cannot Afford To Omit Any Line Of Your Writing Because You You Have Omitted Every Word That He Can Spare.

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.

Colleges, In Like Manner, Have Their Indispensable Office,--to Teach Elements. But They Can Only Highly Serve Us, When They Aim Not To Drill, But To Create; When They Gather From Far Every Ray Of Various Genius To Their Hospitable Halls, And, By The Concentrated Fires, Set The Hearts Of Their Youth On Flame.

Can Anything Be So Elegant As To Have Few Wants, And To Serve Them One's Self?

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

The Death Of A Dear Friend, Wife, Brother, Lover, Which Seemed Nothing But Privation, Somewhat Later Assumes The Aspect Of A Guide Or Genius; For It Commonly Operates Revolutions In Our Way Of Life, Terminates An Epoch Of Infancy Or Of Youth Which Was Waiting To Be Closed, Breaks Up A Wonted Occupation, Or A Household, Or Style Of Living, And Allows The Formation Of New Ones More Friendly To The Growth Of Character.

The Secret Is The Answer To All That Has Been, All That Is, And All That Will Ever Be.

Law Of Attraction

Another Sort Of False Prayers Are Our Regrets. Discontent Is The Way Of Self-reliance: It Is Infirmity Of Will. Regret Calamities, If You Can Thereby Help The Sufferer; If Not, Attend Your Own Work, And Already The Evil Begins To Be Repaired.

The Solar System Has No Anxiety About Its Reputation.

The Evils Of Popular Government Appear Greater Than They Are; There Is Compensation For Them In Spirit And Energy It Awakens.

If We Walk In The Woods, We Must Feed Mosquitoes.

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.

Be A Gift And A Benediction.

These Arts Open Great Gates Of A Future, Promising To Make The World Plastic And To Lift Human Life Out Of Its Beggary To A God- Like Ease And Power.

...what Torments Of Pain Have You Endured That Haven't As Yet Arrived? And May Never!

The Real And Lasting Victories Are Those Of Peace, And Not Of War.

Trending Author

William Lyon Mackenzie King

Category