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Sleep Is Not, Death Is Not; Who Seem To Die Live. House You Were Born In, Friends Of Your Spring-time, Old Man And Young Maid, Day's Toil And It's Guerdon, They Are All Vanishing, Fleeing To Fables, Cannot Be Moored

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Sleep Is Not, Death

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Sleep Is Not, Death Is Not; Who Seem To Die Live. House You Were Born In, Friends Of Your Spring-time, Old Man And Young Maid, Day's Toil And It's Guerdon, They Are All Vanishing, Fleeing To Fables, Cannot Be Moored

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be Brave Enough To Do The Loving Thing.

Conservatism, Ever More Timorous And Narrow, Disgusts The Children, And Drives Them For A Mouthful Of Fresh Air Into Radicalism.

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

Columbus Discovered No Isle Or Key So Lonely As Himself.

Language Is A City To The Building Of Which Every Human Being Brought A Stone.

Language And Power

The Universe Is Represented In Every One Of It's Particles. Everything Is Made Of One Hidden Stuff. The World Globes Itself In A Drop Of Dew. The True Doctrine Of Omnipresence Is That God Appears With All His Parts In Every Moss And Cobweb.

The Times Are The Masquerade Of The Eternities; Trivial To The Dull, Tokens Of Noble And Majestic Agents To The Wise; The Receptacle In Which The Past Leaves Its History; The Quarry Out Of Which The Genius Of Today Is Building Up The Future.

We Ask For Long Life, But 'tis Deep Life, Or Noble Moments That Signify. Let The Measure Of Time Be Spiritual, Not Mechanical.

The Disease With Which The Human Mind Now Labors Is Want Of Faith

Every Great Achievement Is The Victory Of A Flaming Heart.

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.

Every Sunset Brings The Promise Of A New Dawn

Good As Is Discourse, Silence Is Better And Shames It.

If A Man Can Write A Better Book, Preach A Better Sermon, Or Make A Better Mousetrap Than His Neighbor, Though He Build His House In The Woods, The World Will Make A Beaten Path To His Door.

Men Wish To Be Saved From The Mischiefs Of Their Vices, But Not From Their Vices.

What Is Life But The Angle Of Vision? A Man Is Measured By The Angle At Which He Looks At Objects. What Is Life But What A Man Is Thinking Of All Day? This Is His Fate And His Employer. Knowing Is The Measure Of The Man. By How Much We Know, So We Are.

Private, Accidental, Confidential Conversation Breeds Thought. Clubs Produce Oftener Words.

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.

I Feel The Same Truth How Often In My Trivial Conversation With My Neighbours, That Somewhat Higher In Each Of Us Overlooks This By-play, And Jove Nods To Jove From Behind Each Of Us.

If You Believe In Fate, Believe In It, At Least, For Your Good.

We Live In A Very Low State Of The World, And Pay Unwilling Tribute To Government Founded On Force. There Is Not, Among The Most Religious And Instructed Men Of The Most Religious And Civil Nations, A Reliance On The Moral Sentiment, And A Sufficient Belief In The Unity Of Things To Persuade Them That Society Can Be Maintained Without Artificial Restraints, As Well As The Solar System; Or That The Private Citizen Might Be Reasonable, And A Good Neighbor, Without The Hint Of A Jail Or A Confiscation.

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.

If The Colleges Were Better, If They Had The Power Of Imparting Valuable Thought, Creative Principles, Truths Which Become Powers, Thoughts Which Become Talents, - If They Could Cause That A Mind Not Profound Should Become Profound, - We Should All Rush To Their Gates: Instead Of Contriving Inducements To Draw Students, You Would Need To Set Police At The Gates To Keep Order In The In-rushing Multitude.

Whatever Appeals To The Imagination, By Transcending The Ordinary Limits Of Human Ability, Wonderfully Encourages And Liberates Us.

The Present Is An Edifice Which God Cannot Rebuild.

The Angels Are So Enamored Of The Language That Is Spoken In Heaven That They Will Not Distort Their Lips With The Hissing And Unmusical Dialects Of Men, But Speak Their Own, Whether Their Be Any Who Understand It Or Not.

War, To Sane Men At The Present Day, Begins To Look Like An Epidemic Insanity, Breaking Out Here And There Like The Cholera Or Influenza, Infecting Men's Brains Instead Of Their Bowels.

The Rage For Road Building Is Beneficent For America, Where Vast Distance Is So Main A Consideration In Our Domestic Politics Andtrade, Inasmuch As The Great Political Promise Of The Invention Is To Hold The Union Staunch, Whose Days Already Seem Numbered By The Mere Inconvenience Of Transporting Representatives, Judges And Officers Across Such Tedious Distances Of Land And Water.

The Need For A Rational Consistency Is The Hobgoblin Of Small Minds.

Every Ship That Comes To America Got Its Chart From Columbus.

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

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.

If We Follow The Truth, It Will Bring Us Out Safe At Last.

The World Is Nothing, The Man Is All; In Yourself Is The Law Of All Nature, And You Know Not Yet How A Globule Of Sap Ascends; In Yourself Slumbers The Whole Of Reason; It Is For You To Know All, It Is For You To Dare All.

Looking At God Instantly Reduces Our Disposition To Dissent From Our Brother.

Even In The Mud And Scum Of Things, Something Always, Always Sings.

Every Reform Was Once A Private Opinion.

'well,' Said Red Jacket [to Someone Complaining That He Had Not Enough Time], 'i Suppose You Have All There Is.'

I Am Ashamed To See What A Shallow Village Tale Our So-called History Is. How Many Times Must We Say Rome, And Paris, And Constantinople! What Does Rome Know Of Rat And Lizard? What Are Olympiads And Consulates To These Neighboring Systems Of Being? Nay, What Food Or Experience Or Succor Have They For The Esquimaux Seal-hunter, Or The Kanaka In His Canoe, For The Fisherman, The Stevedore, The Porter?

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.

[a]s If Life Were A Thunder-storm Wherein You Can See By A Flash The Horizon, And Then Cannot See Your Hand.

Build A Better Mousetrap And The World Will Beat A Path To Your Door.

The True Philosopher And The True Poet Are One, And A Beauty, Which Is Truth, And A Truth, Which Is Beauty, Is The Aim Of Both.

There Is Always A Best Way Of Doing Everything.

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

If You Put A Chain Around The Neck Of A Slave, The Other End Fastens Itself Around Your Own.

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.

All History Is Biography.

Nothing Can Work Damage To Me Except Myself; The Harm That I Sustain I Carry About With Me And Never Am A Real Sufferer Except By My Own Fault.

I Am Sure Of This, That By Going Much Alone A Man Will Get More Of A Noble Courage In Thought And Word Than From All The Wisdom That Is In Books.

To Map Out A Course Of Action And Follow It To An End Requires Some Of The Same Courage That A Soldier Needs.

When The Literary Class Betray A Destitution Of Faith, It Is Not Strange That Society Should Be Disheartened And Sensualized By Unbelief.

New Arts Destroy The Old.

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.

[gratitude Is] The Cheerfulness Of Wisdom.

There Is Nothing We Value And Hunt And Cultivate And Strive To Draw To Us, But In Some Hour We Turn And Rend It.

Character Teaches Above Our Wills.

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

Nature Cannot Be Surprised In Undress. Beauty Breaks In Everywhere.

The Narrow Sectarian Cannot Read Astronomy With Impunity. The Creeds Of His Church Shrivel Like Dried Leaves At The Door Of The Observatory.

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

There Is This To Be Said In Favor Of Drinking, That It Takes The Drunkard First Out Of Society, Then Out Of The World.

Each Man Has His Own Vocation; His Talent Is His Call. There Is One Direction In Which All Space Is Open To Him.

Knowledge Exists To Be Imparted.

Men Achieve A Certain Greatness Unawares When Working To Another Aim.

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

What You Are Comes To You.

Law Of Attraction

Poetry Makes Its Own Pertinence, And A Single Stanza Outweighs A Book Of Prose.

The Heroic Cannot Be The Common, Nor The Common The Heroic.

Ability Without Honor Has No Value.

The Nobler The Truth Or Sentiment, The Less Imports The Question Of Authorship.

The Wise Know That Foolish Legislation Is A Rope Of Sand, Which Perishes In The Twisting.

The Good Spirit Never Cared For The Colleges, And Though All Men And Boys Were Now Drilled In Greek, Latin, And Mathematics, It Had Quite Left These Shells High On The Beach, And Was Creating And Feeding Other Matters [science] At Other Ends Of The World.

Our Admiration Of The Antique Is Not Admiration Of The Old, But Of The Natural.

It Depends Little On The Object, Much On The Mood, In Art.

The City Is Always Recruited From The Country. The Men In Cities Who Are The Centres Of Energy, The Driving-wheels Of Trade, Politics Or Practical Arts, And The Women Of Beauty And Genius, Are The Children Or Grandchildren Of Farmers, And Are Spending The Energies Which Their Fathers' Hardy, Silent Life Accumulated In Frosty Furrows In Poverty, Necessity And Darkness.

By Fate, Not Option, Frugal Nature Gave One Scent To Hyson And To Wall-flower, One Sound To Pine-groves And To Water-falls, One Aspect To The Desert And The Lake. It Was Her Stern Necessity : All Things Are Of One Pattern Made; Bird, Beast, And Flower, Song, Picture, Form, Space, Thought, And Character Deceive Us, Seeming To Be Many Things, And Are But One.

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.

A Woman Should Always Challenge Our Respect, And Never Move Our Compassion.

The Cruelest Foe Is A Masked Benefactor. The Wars Which Make History So Dreary Have Served The Cause Of Truth And Virtue.

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

To Have Played And Laughed With Enthusiasm, And Sung With Exultation - This To To Have Succeeded.

There Is Something Servile In The Habit Of Seeking After A Law Which We Must Obey.

Concentration Is The Secret Of Srength.

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.

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

In Good Company, The Individuals Merge Their Egotism Into A Social Soul Exactly Co-extensive With The Several Consciousnesses There Present.

The Finest People Marry The Two Sexes In Their Own Person.

Life Is March Weather, Savage And Serene In One Hour.

The Genius Is A Genius By The First Look He Casts On Any Object. Is His Eye Creative? Does He Not Rest In Angles And Colors, But Beholds The Design,--he Will Presently Undervalue The Actual Object.

Truth Has Not Single Victories; All Things Are Its Organs,--not Only Dust And Stones, But Errors And Lies.

Beauty Without Grace Is The Hook Without The Bait.

Foolish, Whenever You Take The Meanness And Formality Of That Thing You Do, Instead Of Converting It Into The Obedient Spiracle Ofyour Character And Aims.

Man Is Not A Farmer, Or A Professor, Or An Engineer, But He Is All. Man Is Priest, And Scholar, And Statesman, And Producer, And Soldier.

All Things Are Moral. That Soul, Which Within Us Is A Sentiment, Outside Of Us Is A Law. We Feel Its Inspiration; Out There In History We Can See Its Fatal Strength.

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.

The Nonconformist And The Rebel Say All Manner Of Unanswerable Things Against The Existing Republic, But Discover To Our Sense No Plan Of House Or State Of Their Own.

Nothing Is Quite Beautiful Alone; Nothing But Is Beautiful In The Whole. A Single Object Is Only So Far Beautiful As It Suggests This Universal Grace.

What Is A Weed? A Plant Whose Virtues Have Never Been Discovered.

I Am Always Insincere, As Always Knowing There Are Other Moods.

The World Is All Gates, All Opportunities, Strings Of Tension Waiting To Be Struck.

In A Virtuous Action, I Properly Am; In A Virtuous Act, I Add To The World; I Plant Into Deserts Conquered From Chaos And Nothing, And See The Darkness Receding On The Limits Of The Horizon.

The Exceptional Life Depends Not On Working Harder, But On Different, Even Opposite, Actions From Habit And The Crowd.

We Animate What We Can See, And We See Only What We Animate.

The Fatal Trait Of The Times Is The Divorce Between Religion And Morality.

In The Woods Too, A Man Casts Off His Years, As The Snake His Slough, And At What Period Soever Of Life, Is Always A Child. In The Woods, Is Perpetual Youth.

We May Be Partial, But Fate Is Not.

You Can Take Better Care Of Your Secret Than Another Can.

In The Sublimest Flights Of The Soul, Rectitude Is Never Surmounted, Love Is Never Outgrown.

Calmness Is Always Godlike.

Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Every One Of Its Members. The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity. Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

A Man Of Good Sense But Of Little Faith, Whose Compassion Seemed To Lead Him To Church As Often As He Went There, Said To Me; 'that He Liked To Have Concerts, And Fairs, And Churches, And Other Public Amusements Go On.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage. Whatever Course You Decide Upon, There Is Always Someone To Tell You That You Are Wrong. There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right. To Map Out A Course Of Action And Follow It To An End Requires Some Of The Same Courage That A Soldier Needs. Peace Has Its Victories, But It Takes Brave Men And Women To Win Them.

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

There Are Books... Which Rank In Our Life With Parents And Lovers And Passionate Experiences.

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.

The Remedy For All Blunders, The Cure Of Blindness, The Cure Of Crime, Is Love.

Every Man Is A Quotation From All His Ancestors.

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

Keep The Town For Occasions, But The Habits Should Be Formed In Retirement.

The Poorest Experience Is Rich Enough For All The Purposes Of Expressing Thought

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

Secret To Success

Slavery Is No Scholar, No Improver; It Does Not Love The Whistle Of The Railroad; It Does Not Love The Newspaper, The Mailbag, A College, A Book Or A Preacher Who Has The Absurd Whim Of Saying What He Thinks; It Does Not Increase The White Population; It Does Not Improve The Soil; Everything Goes To Decay.

Nature Turns All Malfaisance To Good.

There Is A Blessed Necessity By Which The Interest Of Men Is Always Driving Them To The Right; And, Again, Making All Crime Mean And Ugly.

We Live Ruins Amid Ruins.

When All Shoot At One Mark, The Gods Join In The Combat.

The Ancestor Of Every Action Is Thought; When We Understand That We Begin To Comprehend That Our World Is Governed By Thought And That Everything Without Had Its Counterpart Originally Within The Mind.

The Best Picture Makes Us Say, I Am A Painter Also.

At The Gates Of The Forest, The Surprised Man Of The World Is Forced To Leave His City Estimates Of Great And Small, Wise And Foolish.

Everything Teaches Transition, Transference, Metamorphosis: Therein Is Human Power, In Transference, Not In Creation; & Therein Is Human Destiny, Not In Longevity But In Removal. We Dive & Reappear In New Places.

Adult Males Are What Their Moms Designed Them.

Coolness And Absence Of Heat And Haste Indicate Fine Qualities.

A Friend May Be Nature's Most Magnificent Creation.

If I Could Put My Hand On The North Star, Would It Be As Beautiful? The Sea Is Lovely, But When We Bathe In It The Beauty Forsakesall The Near Water. For The Imagination And Senses Cannot Be Gratified At The Same Time.

Infancy Conforms To Nobody: All Conform To It, So That One Babe Commonly Makes Four Or Five Out Of The Adults Who Prattle And Play To It.

Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year. He Is Rich Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded With Fret And Anxiety. Finish Every 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, With Too High A Spirit To Be Cumbered With Your Old Nonsense. This New Day Is Too Dear, With Its Hopes And Invitations, To Waste A Moment On The Yesterdays.

The Question Is Whether [suicide] Is The Way Out, Or The Way In.

When I Read A Good Book, I Wish My Life Were Three Thousand Years Long.

Five Minutes Of Today Are Worth As Much To Me, As Five Minutes In The Next Millennium. Let Us Be Poised, And Wise, And Our Own, Today.

Knowledge Is The Knowing That We Cannot Know.

We Boast Our Emancipation From Many Superstitions; But If We Have Broken Any Idols, It Is Through A Transfer Of Idolatry.

God Made Yeast, As Well As Dough, And Loves Fermentation Just As Dearly As He Loves Vegetation.

The Whole Of Heraldry And Of Chivalry Is In Courtesy. A Man Of Fine Manners Shall Pronounce Your Name With All The Ornament That Titles Of Nobility Could Ever Add.

Manners Aim To Facilitate Life, To Get Rid Of Impediments, And Bring The Man Pure To Energize. They Aid Our Dealing And Conversation, As A Railway Aids Travelling, By Getting Rid Of All Avoidable Obstructions Of The Road, And Leaving Nothing To Be Conquered But Pure Space.

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.

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.

The Light By Which We See In This World Comes Out From The Soul Of The Observer. Wherever Any Noble Sentiment Dwelt, It Made The Faces And Houses Around To Shine. Nay, The Powers Of This Busy Brain Are Miraculous And Illimitable.

It In Every Fair Face, Every Fair Sky, Every Fair Flower.

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

It Is Plain That There Is No Separate Essence Called Courage, No Cup Or Cell In The Brain, No Vessel In The Heart Containing Drops Or Atoms That Make Or Give This Virtue; But It Is The Right Or Healthy State Of Every Man, When He Is Free To Do That Which Is Constitutional To Him To Do.

I See My Trees Repair Their Boughs.

This Very Certain That Each Man Carries In His Eye The Exact Indication Of His Rank In The Immense Scale Of Men, And We Are Always Learning To Read It. A Complete Man Should Need No Auxiliaries To His Personal Presence.

The Hearing Ear Is Always Found Close To The Speaking Tongue.

The People Are To Be Taken In Very Small Doses.

Public Speaking

A Lady With Whom I Was Riding In The Forest Said To Me That The Woods Always Seemed To Her To Wait, As If The Genii Who Inhabit Them Suspend Their Deeds Until The Wayfarer Had Passed Onward; A Thought Which Poetry Has Celebrated In The Dance Of The Fairies, Which Breaks Off On The Approach Of Human Feet.

Enthusiasm Is The Engine Of Success.

Congratulations

Who Is He That Shall Control Me? Why May Not I Act And Speak And Write And Think With Entire Freedom? What Am I To The Universe, Or, The Unvierse, What Is It To Me? Who Hath Forged The Chains Of Wrong And Right, Of Opinion And Custom? And Must I Wear Them?

He Is A Dull Observer Whose Experience Has Not Taught Him The Reality And Force Of Magic, As Well As Of Chemistry.

The Virtues Of Society Are Vices Of The Saint. The Terror Of Reform Is The Discovery That We Must Cast Away Our Virtues, Or What We Have Always Esteemed Such, Into The Same Pit That Has Consumed Our Grosser Vices.

Perpetual Modernism Is The Measure Of Merit In Every Work Of Art.

All Sensible People Are Selfish, And Nature Is Tugging At Every Contract To Make The Terms Of It Fair.

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See. If You Look For What Is Good And What You Can Be Grateful For You Will Find It Everywhere.

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.

I Can Reason Down Or Deny Everything, Except This Perpetual Belly: Feed He Must And Will, And I Cannot Make Him Respectable.

Beware When The Great God Lets Loose A Thinker On This Planet. Then All Things Are At Risk. It Is As When A Conflagration Has Broken Out In A Great City, And No Man Knows What Is Safe, Or Where It Will End.

Fate, Then, Is A Name For Facts Not Yet Passed Under The Fire Of Thought; For Causes Which Are Unpenetrated.

There Is Virtue Yet In The Hoe And The Spade, For Learned As Well As For Unlearned Hands. And Labor Is Everywhere Welcome; Alwayswe Are Invited To Work.

The Simplicity Of The Universe Is Very Different From The Simplicity Of A Machine. The Simplicity Of Nature Is Not That Which May Be Easily Read But Is Inexhaustible. The Last Analysis Can No Wise Be Made.

Can Rules Or Tutors Educate The Semigod Whom We Await? He Must Be Musical, Tremulous, Impressional, Alive To Gentle Influence Of Landscape And Of Sky And Tender To The Spirit-touch Of Man's Or Maiden's Eye.

Sleep Takes Off The Costume Of Circumstance, Arms Us With Terrible Freedom, So That Every Will Rushes To A Deed.

But There Are Higher Secrets Of Culture, Which Are Not For The Apprentices, But For Proficients. These Are Lessons Only For The Brave. We Must Know Our Friends Under Ugly Masks. The Calamities Are Our Friends.

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.

Foolish Consistencies Are The Hobgoblins Of Small Minds!

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.

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

Science And Religion

Friendship Requires More Time Than Poor Busy Men Can Usually Command.

Do What You're Afraid To Do.

We Must Trust Infinitely To The Beneficent Necessity Which Shines Through All Laws. Human Nature Expresses Itself In Them As Characteristically As In Statues, Or Songs, Or Railroads, And An Abstract Of The Codes Of Nations Would Be An Abstract Of The Common Conscience.

A Friend, Therefore, Is A Sort Of Paradox In Nature. I Who Alone Am, I Who See Nothing In Nature Whose Existence I Can Affirm With Equal Evidence To My Own, Behold Now The Semblance Of My Being, In All Its Height, Variety, And Curiosity, Reiterated In A Foreign Form; So That A Friend May Well Be Reckoned The Masterpiece Of Nature.

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.

Nature Is Upheld By Antagonism.

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

Some Will Always Be Above Others.

Nothing Can Bring You Happiness But Yourself Especially How You Choose To Think About Your Situation.

The Magnanimous Know Very Well That They Who Give Time, Or Money, Or Shelter, To The Stranger--so It Be Done For Love, And Not Forostentation--do, As It Were, Put God Under Obligation To Them, So Perfect Are The Compensations Of The Universe.

The World Is The Perennial Miracle Which The Soul Worketh.

Throb Thine With Nature's Throbbing Breast.

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.

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

"in The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith. There I Feel That Nothing Can Befall Me In Life~~no Disgrace, No Calamity (leaving Me My Eyes), Which Nature Cannot Repair."

Respect The Child. Be Not Too Much His Parent. Trespass Not On His Solitude.

Those Who Stay Away From The Election Think That One Vote Will Do No Good. 'tis But One Step More To Think One Vote Will Do No Harm.

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.

Doubt Not, O Poet, But Persist. Say 'it Is In Me, And Shall Out.' Stand There, Balked And Dumb, Stuttering And Stammering, Hissed And Hooted, Stand And Strive, Until At Last Rage Draw Out Of Thee That Dream-power Which Every Night Shows Thee Is Thine Own; A Power Transcending All Limit And Privacy, And By Virtue Of Which A Man Is The Conductor Of The Whole River Of Electricity.

All High Beauty Has A Moral Element In It.

You Cannot Do A Kindness Too Soon.

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.

The Unsaid Part Is The Best Of Every Discourse.

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