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Skepticism Is Unbelief In Cause And Effect. A Man Does Not See, That, As He Eats, So He Thinks: As He Deals, So He Is, And So He Appears; He Does Not See That His Son Is The Son Of His Thoughts And Of His Actions; That Fortunes Are Not Exceptions But Fruits; That Relation And Connection Are Not Somewhere And Sometimes, But Everywhere And Always; No Miscellany, No Exemption, No Anomaly,--but Method, And An Even Web; And What Comes Out, That Was Put In.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Skepticism Is Unbelief In

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Skepticism Is Unbelief In Cause And Effect. A Man Does Not See, That, As He Eats, So He Thinks: As He Deals, So He Is, And So He Appears; He Does Not See That His Son Is The Son Of His Thoughts And Of His Actions; That Fortunes Are Not Exceptions But Fruits; That Relation And Connection Are Not Somewhere And Sometimes, But Everywhere And Always; No Miscellany, No Exemption, No Anomaly,--but Method, And An Even Web; And What Comes Out, That Was Put In.

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Talent Is Commonly Developed At The Expense Of Character.

Conversation Is A Game Of Circles.

The Way To Mend The Bad World Is To Create The Right World.

My Gentleman Gives The Law Where He Is; He Will Outpray Saints In Chapel, Outgeneral Veterans In The Field, And Outshine All Courtesy In The Hall. He Is Good Company For Pirates, And Good With Academicians; So That It Is Useless To Fortify Yourself Against Him; He Has The Private Entrance To All Minds, And I Could As Easily Exclude Myself, As Him.

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

We Flee Away From Cities, But We Bring The Best Of Cities, These Learned Classifiers, Men Knowing What They Seek, Armed Eyes Of Experts.

Beauty Rests On Necessities.

We Hear Eagerly Every Thought And Word Quoted From An Intellectual Man. But In His Presence Our Own Mind Is Roused To Activity, And We Forget Very Fast What He Says.

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.

No Matter How Often Defeated, You Are Born To Victory.

Coffee Is Good For Talent, But Genius Wants Prayer.

Intellect Annuls Fate. So Far As A Man Thinks He Is Free.

Why Should I Hasten To Solve Every Riddle Which Life Offers Me? I Am Well Assured That The Questioner, Who Brings Me So Many Problems, Will Bring Me The Answers Also, In Due Time.

Make The Most Of Yourself, For That Is All There Is Of You.

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!

Of The Shaker Society, It Was Formerly A Sort Of Proverb In The Country, That They Always Sent The Devil To Market.

Eloquence Is The Power To Translate A Truth Into Language Perfectly Intelligible To The Person To Whom You Speak.

Law Rules Throughout Existence, A Law Which Is Not Intelligent, But Intelligence.

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.

Nature Suffers Nothing To Remain In Her Kingdom Which Cannot Help Itself.

The Moment Our Discourse Rises Above The Ground-line Of Familiar Facts, And Is Inflamed With Passion Or Exalted Thought, It Clothes Itself In Images. A Man Conversing In Earnest, If He Watch His Intellectual Processes, Will Find That Always A Material Image, More Or Less Luminous, Arises In His Mind, Contemporaneous With Every Thought, Which Furnishes The Vestment Of The Thought.... This Imagery Is Spontaneous. It Is The Blending Of Experience With The Present Action Of The Mind. It Is Proper Creation.

That Which Builds Is Better Than That Which Is Built.

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.

The Artists Must Be Sacrificed To Their Art. Like The Bees, They Must Put Their Lives Into The Sting They Give.

Black Men Built The Railroads, Not Blue Eyes.

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.

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

Masses Are Rude, Lame, Unmade, Pernicious In Their Demands And Influence, And Need Not To Be Flattered, But To Be Schooled. I Wish Not To Concede Anything To Them, But To Tame, Drill, Divide, And Break Them Up, And Draw Individuals Out Of Them.

What The Tender And Poetic Youth Dreams To-day, And Conjures Up With Inarticulate Speech, Is To-morrow The Vociferated Result Of Public Opinion, And The Day After Is The Character Of Nations.

There Are No Fixtures In Nature. The Universe Is Fluid And Volatile. Permanence Is But A Word Of Degrees.

It Is One Light Which Beams Out Of A Thousand Stars. It Is One Soul Which Animates All Men.

My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life.

The Only Right Is What Is After My Constitution; The Only Wrong Is What Is Against It.

We Must Set Up A Strong Present Tense Against All Rumors Of Wrath, Past And To Come.

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Ability Without Honor Has No Value.

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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.

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Each Particle Is A Microcosm, And Faithfully Renders The Likeness Of The World.

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Exaggeration Is

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A Garden Has This Advantage, That It Makes It Indifferent Where You Live. A Well-laid Garden Makes The Face Of The Country Of No Account; Let That Be Low Or High, Grand Or Mean, You Have Made A Beautiful Abode Worthy Of Man.

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We Do Not Make A World Of Our Own, But Fall Into Institutions Already Made, And Have To Accommodate Ourselves To Them To Be Useful At All.

The Laws Of Each Are Convertible Into The Laws Of Any Other.

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

Intellect Is Void Of Affection And Sees An Object As It Stands In The Light Of Science, Cool And Disengaged. The Intellect Goes Out Of The Individual, Floats Over Its Own Personality, And Regards It As A Fact, And Not As I And Mine.

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

He Only Is A Well-made Man Who Has A Good Determination.

Life Is A Series Of Surprises And Would Not Be Worth Taking Or Keeping If It Were Not.

Every Man Contemplates An Angel In His Future Self.

If The Race Is Good, So Is The Place.

Others Can Get In Your Way Temporarily, But Only You Can Get Out Of Your Way Permanently. Our Best Thoughts Come From Others.

The Victories Of Character Are Instant, And Victories For All.

Is The Acorn Better Than The Oak Which Is Its Fullness And Completion?

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

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

We Say Love Is Blind, And The Figure Of Cupid Is Drawn With A Bandage Around His Eyes. Blind - Yes, Because He Does Not See What He Does Not Like; But The Sharpest-sighted Hunter In The Universe Is Love For Finding What He Seeks, And Only That.

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

As Every Pool Reflects The Image Of The Sun, So Every Thought And Thing Restores Us An Image And Creature Of The Supreme Good. Theuniverse Is Perforated By A Million Channels For His Activity. All Things Mount And Mount.

The Borrowing Is Often Honest Enough, And Comes Of Magnanimity And Stoutness. A Great Man Quotes Bravely And Will Not Draw On His Invention When His Memory Serves Him With A Word As Good.

Nature Is Upheld By Antagonism.

Don't Ever Give Up On Something Or Someone That You Can't Go A Full Day Without Thinking About.

When We See A Soul Whose Acts Are All Regal, Graceful, And Pleasant As Roses, We Must Thank God That Such Things Can Be And Are.

Nature Is A Language And Every New Fact One Learns Is A New Word; But It Is Not A Language Taken To Pieces And Dead In The Dictionary, But The Language Put Together Into A Most Significant And Universal Sense. I Wish To Learn This Language - Not That I May Know A New Grammar, But That I May Read The Great Book Which Is Written In That Tongue.

To Believe In Luck, If It Were Not A Solecism So To Use The Word Believe, Is Skepticism.

Friends Should Be Like Books, Easy To Find When You Need Them, But Seldom Used.

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

Explore, And Explore. Be Neither Chided Nor Flattered Out Of Your Position Of Perpetual Inquiry. Neither Dogmatize Or Accept Another's Dogmatism.

Discontent Is Want Of Self-reliance; It Is Infirmity Of Will.

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.

Let Us Draw A Lesson From Nature, Which Always Works By Short Ways. When The Fruit Is Ripe, It Falls.

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

In Conversation The Game Is, To Say Something New With Old Words. And You Shall Observe A Man Of The People Picking His Way Along, Step By Step, Using Every Time An Old Boulder, Yet Never Setting His Foot On An Old Place.

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

There Is Always Safety In Valor.

There Is A Time When A Man Distinguishes The Idea Of Felicity From The Idea Of Wealth; It Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.

Society Is The Stage On Which Manners Are Shown; Novels Are The Literature. Novels Are The Journal Or Record Of Manners; And The New Importance Of These Books Derives From The Fact, That The Novelist Begins To Penetrate The Surface, And Treat This Part Of Life More Worthily.

We Boil At Different Degrees.

Being Different

We Thirst For Approbation, Yet Cannot Forgive The Approver.

Truth, And Goodness, And Beauty, Are But Different Faces Of The Same All

Different Faces

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.

The Bitterest Tragic Element In Life To Be Derived From An Intellectual Source Is The Belief In A Brute Fate Or Destiny.

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.

We May Be Partial, But Fate Is Not.

It Is In The Stomach Of Plants That Development Begins, And Ends In The Circles Of The Universe. 'tis A Long Scale From The Gorilla To The Gentleman,--from The Gorilla To Plato, Newton, Shakespeare,--to The Sanctities Of Religion, The Refinements Of Legislation, The Summit Of Science, Art, And Poetry. The Beginnings Are Slow And Infirm, But It Is An Always Accelerated March.

Drive Out Nature With A Fork, She Comes Running Back.

He Is A Good Man Who Can Receive A Gift Well.

To Laugh Often And Much ... This Is To Have Succeeded. Probably Not From Emerson: Here's The Full Quotation And The Story.

How Painful To Give A Gift To Any Person Of Sensibility, Or Of Equality! It Is Next Worst To Receiving One

A Man Makes Inferiors His Superiors By Heat; Self Control Is The Rule. Anger Is An Uncontrollable Feeling That Betrays What You Are When You Are Not Yourself. Anger Is That Powerful Internal Force That Blows Out The Light Of Reason. Know This To Be The Enemy: It Is Anger, Born Of Desire.

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.

The Years In Your Life Are Less Important Than The Life In Your Years.

Do Not Believe That Possibly You Can Escape The Reward Of Your Action.

Evermore In The World Is This Marvelous Balance Of Beauty And Disgust, Magnificence And Rats.

Ideas Must Work Through The Brains And The Arms Of Good And Brave Men Or They Are No Better Than Dreams.

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.

All Men Are Poets At Heart.

Let The Amelioration In Our Laws Of Property Proceed From The Concession Of The Rich, Not From The Grasping Of The Poor. Let Us Understand That The Equitable Rule Is, That No One Should Take More Than His Share, Let Him Be Ever So Rich.

Many A Profound Genius, I Suppose, Who Fills The World With Fame Of His Exploding Renowned Errors, Is Yet Everyday Posed And Baffled By Trivial Questions At His Own Supper Table.

The Secret Of Success In Society Is A Certain Heartiness And Sympathy.

Secret To Success

A Man Finds Room In The Few Square Inches Of The Face For The Traits Of All His Ancestors; For The Expression Of All His History, And His Wants.

Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things.

Every Person Has His Or Her Own Vocation-talent Is The Call.

Any Extraordinary Degree Of Beauty In Man Or Woman Involves A Moral Charm.

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.

...most Men Have Bound Their Eyes With One Or Another Handkerchief, And Attached Themselves To Some One Of These Communities Of Opinion. This Conformity Makes Them Not False In A Few Particulars, Authors Of A Few Lies, But False In All Particulars. Their Every Truth Is Not Quite True. Their Two Is Not The Real Two, Their Four Not The Real Four; So That Every Word They Say Chagrins Us, And We Know Not Where To Begin To Set Them Right.

Great Believers Are Always Reckoned Infidels, Impracticable, Fantastic, Atheistic, And Really Men Of No Account. The Spiritualist Finds Himself Driven To Express His Faith By A Series Of Skepticisms.

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

We Acquire The Strength We Have Overcome.

Nature Will Not Let Us Fret And Fume. She Does Not Like Our Benevolence Or Our Learning Much Better Than She Likes Our Frauds Andwars. When We Come Out Of The Caucus, Or The Bank, Or The Abolition-convention, Or The Temperance-meeting, Or The Transcendental Club, Into The Fields And Woods, She Says To Us, "so Hot? My Little Sir.

Every Burned Book Enlightens The World.

History No Longer Shall Be A Dull Book. It Shall Walk Incarnate In Every Just And Wise Man. You Shall Not Tell Me By Language And Titles A Catalogue Of The Volumes You Have Read. You Shall Make Me Feel What Periods You Have Lived.

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.

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

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.

A Low Self-love In The Parent Desires That His Child Should Repeat His Character And Fortune.

We Say The Cows Laid Out Boston. Well, There Are Worse Surveyors.

Music Is The Poor Man's Parnassus.

Dear To Us Are Those Who Love Us... But Dearer Are Those Who Reject Us As Unworthy, For They Add Another Life; They Build A Heaven Before Us Whereof We Had Not Dreamed, And Thereby Supply To Us New Powers Out Of The Recesses Of The Spirit, And Urge Us To New And Unattempted Performances.

But To Most Of Us Society Shows Not Its Face And Eye, But Its Side And Back. To Stand In True Relations With Men In A False Age Isworth A Fit Of Insanity, Is It Not?

A Just Thinker Will Allow Full Swing To His Scepticism. I Dip My Pen In The Blackest Ink, Because I Am Not Afraid Of Falling Into My Inkpot.... We Are Of Different Opinions At Different Hours, But We Always May Be Said To Be At Heart On The Side Of Truth.

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

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

Nature Arms Each Man With Some Faculty Which Enables Him To Do Easily Some Feat Impossible To Any Other.

He Only Is A Well-made Man Who Has A Good Determination. And The End Of Culture Is Not To Destroy This, God Forbid! But To Train Away All Impediment And Mixture And Leave Nothing But Pure Power.

We Are Shut Up In Schools And College Recitation Rooms For Ten Or Fifteen Years, And Come Out At Last With A Bellyful Of Words And Do Not Know A Thing.

A Song Is No Song Unless The Circumstance Is Free And Fine. If A Singer Sing From A Sense Of Duty Or From Seeing No Way To Escape,i Had Rather Have None. Those Only Can Sleep Who Do Not Care To Sleep; And Those Only Write Or Speak Best Who Do Not Too Much Respect The Writing Or The Speaking.

A Seashell Should Be The Crest Of England, Not Only Because It Represents A Power Built On The Waves, But Also The Hard Finish Ofthe Men. The Englishman Is Finished Like A Cowry Or A Murex.

To Be A Man Is To Be A Nonconformist.

The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks.

I Dream Of A Better Tomorrow, Where Chickens Can Cross The Road And Not Be Questioned About Their Motives.

Our Chief Want In Life Is Somebody Who Will Make Us Do What We Can.

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

I Read The Other Day Some Verses Written By An Eminent Painter Which Were Original And Not Conventional. The Soul Always Hears An Admonition In Such Lines, Let The Subject Be What It May. The Sentiment They Instil Is Of More Value Than Any Thought They May Contain. To Believe Your Own Thought, To Believe That What Is True For You In Your Private Heart Is True For All Men, - That Is Genius.

War Educates The Senses, Calls Into Action The Will, Perfects The Physical Constitution, Brings Men Into Such Swift And Close Collision In Critical Moments That Man Measures Man.

Saving Private Ryan

As We Refine, Our Checks Become Finer. If We Rise To Spiritual Culture, The Antagonism Takes A Spiritual Form.

To Go Into Solitude, A Man Needs To Retire As Much From His Chamber As From Society. I Am Not Solitary Whilst I Read And Write, Though Nobody Is With Me. But If A Man Would Be Alone, Let Him Look At The Stars.

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

All Persons Are Puzzles Until At Last We Find In Some Word Or Act The Key To The Man, To The Woman; Straightway All Their Past Words And Actions Lie In Light Before Us.

Shakespeare Possesses The Power Of Subordinating Nature For The Purposes Of Expression, Beyond All Poets. His Imperial Muse Tosses The Creation Like A Bauble From Hand To Hand, And Uses It To Embody Any Caprice Of Thought That Is Uppermost In His Mind. The Remotest Spaces Of Nature Are Visited, And The Farthest Sundered Things Are Brought Together, By Subtle Spiritual Connection. We Are Made Aware That Magnitude Of Material Things Is Relative, And All Objects Shrink And Expand To Serve The Passion Of The Poet.

Do Not Shut Up The Young People Against Their Will In A Pew, And Force The Children To Ask Them Questions For An Hour Against Their Will.

We Are Like Travellers Using The Cinders Of A Volcano To Roast Their Eggs. Whilst We See That It Always Stands Ready To Clothe What We Would Say, We Cannot Avoid The Question Whether The Characters Are Not Significant Of Themselves.

Society Acquires New Arts, And Loses Old Instincts.

Transcendentalism

Science Does Not Know Its Debt To Imagination. Goethe Did Not Believe That A Great Naturalist Could Exist Without This Faculty.

The Flowering Of Civilization Is The Finished Man, The Man Of Sense, Of Grace, Of Accomplishment, Of Social Power--the Gentleman.

The Scholar May Lose Himself In Schools, In Words, And Become A Pedant; But When He Comprehends His Duties, He Above All Men Is Arealist, And Converses With Things.

We Read Often With As Much Talent As We Write.

We Are Not Very Much To Blame For Our Bad Marriages. We Live Amid Hallucinations, And Especial Trap Is Laid To Trip Up Our Feet With, And All Are Tripped Up First Or Last. But The Mighty Mother, Who Had Been So Sly With Us, As If She Felt She Owed Us Some Indemnity, Insinuates Into The Pandora Box Of Marriage Some Deep And Serious Benefits, And Some Great Joys.

Every Reform Was Once A Private Opinion, And When It Shall Be A Private Opinion Again, It Will Solve The Problem Of The Age.

The Masses Have No Habit Of Self-reliance Or Original Action.

We Are Shut Up In School And College Recitation Rooms For Ten To Fifteen Years, And Come Out At Last With A Bellyful Of Words And Do Not Know A Thing. We Cannot Use Our Hands, Or Our Legs, Or Our Eyes, Or Our Arms. We Do Not Know An Edible Root In The Woods. We Cannot Tell Our Course By The Stars, Nor The Hour Of Day By The Sun. It Is Well If We Can Swim And Skate. We Are Afraid Of A Horse Or A Cow, Of A Dog, Of A Cat, Of A Spider. Far Better Was The Roman Rule To Teach A Boy Nothing That He Could Not Learn Standing.

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

A Friend May Be Nature's Most Magnificent Creation.

Life Loiters At The Book's First Page,-- Ah! Could We Turn The Leaf.

Why Needs A Man Be Rich? Why Must He Have Horses, Fine Garments, Handsome Apartments, Access To Public Houses, And Places Of Amusement? Only For Want Of Thought.

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.

Always Maintain Your Common Sense And Artful Skills, And Funnel It All Into Plain Enough Dealings.

We Are As Much Strangers In Nature, As We Are Aliens From God. We Do Not Understand The Notes Of Birds. The Fox And The Deer Run Away From Us; The Bear And Tiger Rend Us. We Do Not Know The Uses Of More Than A Few Plants, As Corn And The Apple, The Potato And The Vine. Is Not The Landscape, Every Glimpse Of Which Hath A Grandeur, A Face Of Him?

Art Is Not To Be Found By Touring To Egypt, China, Or Peru; If You Cannot Find It At Your Own Door, You Will Never Find It.

You Cannot Do A Kindness Too Soon.

Do You Love Me? Means At Last Do You See The Same Truth I See? If You Do, We Are Happy Together; But When Presently One Of Us Passes Into The Perception Of A New Truth, We Are Divorced And The Force Of All Nature Cannot Hold Us To Each Other.

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