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Spurious Prudence, Making The Senses Final, Is The God Of Sots And Cowards, And Is The Subject Of All Comedy. It Is Nature's Joke, And Therefore Literature's. True Prudence Limits This Sensualism By Admitting The Knowledge Of An Internal And Real World.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Spurious Prudence, Making The

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Spurious Prudence, Making The Senses Final, Is The God Of Sots And Cowards, And Is The Subject Of All Comedy. It Is Nature's Joke, And Therefore Literature's. True Prudence Limits This Sensualism By Admitting The Knowledge Of An Internal And Real World.

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

Good Nature Is Stronger Than Tomahawks.

Prayer That Craves A Particular Commodity, Anything Less Than All Good, Is Vicious.

You Think That Your Silence On Certain Topics, Perhaps In The Face Of Injustice, Or Unkindness, Or Mean-spiritedness, Causes Others To Reserve Judgement Of You. Far Otherwise; Your Silence Utters Very Loud: You Have No Oracle To Speak, No Wisdom To Offer, And Your Fellow Men Have Learned That You Cannot Help Them. Doth Not Wisdom Cry, And Understanding Put Forth Her Voice? We Would Be Well To Do Likewise.

I Wish To Write Such Rhymes As Shall Not Suggest A Restraint, But Contrariwise The Wildest Freedom.

Fate Is Unpenetrated Causes.

There Is Simply The Rose; It Is Perfect In Every Moment Of Its Existence.

Great Thoughts Ensure Musical Expression.

Musical Expression

What Forests Of Laurel We Bring, And The Tears Of Mankind, To Those Who Stood Firm Against The Opinion Of Their Contemporaries!

By The Irresistible Maturing Of The General Mind, The Christian Traditions Have Lost Their Hold.

Progress Is The Activity Of Today And The Assurance Of Tomorrow

Persons Are Fine Things, But They Cost So Much! For Thee I Must Pay Me.

Talent Is Commonly Developed At The Expense Of Character.

Love, And You Shall Be Loved.

A Healthy Soul Stands United With The Just And The True, As The Magnet Arranges Itself With The Pole, So That He Stands To All Beholders Like A Transparent Object Betwixt Them And The Sun, And Whoso Journeys Towards The Sun, Journeys Towards That Person. He Is Thus The Medium Of The Highest Influence To All Who Are Not On The Same Level.

'tis A Short Sight To Limit Our Faith In Laws To Those Of Gravity, Of Chemistry, Of Botany, And So Forth. Those Laws Do Not Stop Where Our Eyes Lose Them, But Push The Same Geometry And Chemistry Up Into The Invisible Plane Of Social And Rational Life, So That, Look Where We Will, In A Boy's Game, Or In The Strifes Of Races, A Perfect Reaction, A Perpetual Judgment Keeps Watch And Ward.

There Is Guidance For Each Of Us, And By Lowly Listening We Shall Hear The Right Word.

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.

Be A Football To Time And Chance, The More Kicks, The Better, So That You Inspect The Whole Game And Know Its Utmost Law.

These Are The Voices Which We Hear In Solitude, But They Grow Faint And Inaudible As We Enter Into The World.

Delicious Is A Just And Firm Encounter Of Two In A Thought, In A Feeling.

Music And Wine Are One.

Cities Degrade Us By Magnifying Trifles.

The Man Of Genius Inspires Us With A Boundless Confidence In Our Own Powers.

Mankind Have Such A Deep Stake In Inward Illumination, That There Is Much To Be Said By The Hermit Or Monk In Defence Of His Life Of Thought And Prayer.

He Who Loves Goodness Harbors Angels, Reveres Reverence, And Lives With God.

The Religions Are Obsolete When The Reforms Do Not Proceed From Them.

A Breath Of Will Blows Eternally Through The Universe Of Souls In The Direction Of Right And Necessity. It Is The Air Which All Intellects Inhale And Exhale, And It Is The Wind Which Blows The Worlds Into Order And Orbit.

It's A Luxury To Be Understood.

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

The Sun Illuminates Only The Eye Of The Man, But Shines Into The Eye And The Heart Of The Child.

Passion Rebuilds The World For The Youth. It Makes All Things Alive And Significant.

Conversation Is An Evanescent Relation,--no More.

Speak The Affirmative; Emphasize Your Choice By Utter Ignoring Of All That You Reject.

Every Word Was Once A Poem. Every New Relation Is A New Word.

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

It Is Impossible For A Man To Be Cheated By Anyone But Himself.

Yet Some Natures Are Too Good To Be Spoiled By Praise, And Wherever The Vein Of Thought Reaches Down Into The Profound, There Is No Danger From Vanity. Solemn Friends Will Warn Them Of The Danger Of The Head's Being Turned By The Flourish Of Trumpets, But They Can Afford To Smile.

When God Lets Loose A Great Thinker On This Planet, Then All Things Are At Risk. There Is Not A Piece Of Science But Its Flank May Be Turned To-morrow; Nor Any Literary Reputation Or The So-called Eternal Names Of Fame That Many Not Be Refused And Condemned.

If You Will Not Lend Me The Money, How Can I Pay You?

That Which Dominates Our Imagination And Our Thoughts Will Determine Our Life And Character.

The Powers Of The Soul Are Commensurate With Its Needs.

Sometimes A Scream Is Better Than A Thesis.

Every Actual State Is Corrupt. Good Men Must Not Obey The Laws Too Well. What Satire On Government Can Equal The Severity Of Censure Conveyed In The Word Politics ....?

Our Spontaneous Action Is Always The Best. You Cannot, With Your Best Deliberation And Heed, Come So Close To Any Question As Your Spontaneous Glance Shall Bring You.

The Wise Skeptic Does Not Teach Doubt But How] To Look For The Permanent In The Mutable And Fleeting.

No Performance Is Worth Loss Of Geniality. 'tis A Cruel Price We Pay For Certain Fancy Goods Called Fine Arts And Philosophy.

We Lie In The Lap Of Immense Intelligence, Which Makes Us Receivers Of Its Truth And Organ Of Its Activity. When We Discern Justice, When We Discern Truth, We Do Nothing By Ourselves, But Allow A Passage To Its Beams. If We Ask Whence This Comes, If We Seek To Pry Into The Soul That Causes, All Philosophy Is At Fault. Its Presence Or Its Absence Is All We Can Affirm.

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

The Invariable Mark Of Wisdom Is To See The Miraculous In The Common.

Say Thank You! I Want To Hear You Say It Now. Out Loud. 'thank You.' You're Saying Thank You Because Your Faith Is So Strong That You Don't Doubt That Whatever The Problem, You'll Get Through It. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know That Even In The Eye Of The Storm, God Has Put A Rainbow In The Clouds. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know There's No Problem Created That Can Compare To The Creator Of All Things. Say Thank You!

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... Whoso Would Be A Man Must Be A Nonconformist... What I Must Do, Is All That Concerns Me; Not What The People Think... Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself; Nothing, But The Triumph Of Principles.

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

A Man Is A Method, A Progressive Arrangement; A Selecting Principle, Gathering His Like To Him; Wherever He Goes.

A Man Complained That On His Way Home To Dinner He Had Every Day To Pass Through That Long Field Of His Neighbor's. I Advised Him To Buy It, And It Would Never Seem Long Again.

My Companion Assumes To Know My Mood And Habit Of Thought, And We Go On From Explanation To Explanation, Until All Is Said That Words Can, And We Leave Matters Just As They Were At First, Because Of That Vicious Assumption.

Truth Is The Summit Of Being.

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.

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.

A Person's Life Is Limited But Serving The People Is Limitless. I Want To Devote My Limited Life To Serving The People Limitlessly.

We Live In Succession, In Division, In Parts And Particles. Meantime, Within Man, Is The Soul Of The Whole; The Wise Silence; The Universal Beauty To Which Every Part And Particle Is Equally Related; The Eternal One.

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

We Do What We Can, And Then Make A Theory To Prove Our Performance The Best.

What If You Do Fail, And Get Fairly Rolled In The Dirt Once Or Twice. Up Again, You Shall Never Be So Afraid Of A Tumble.

And I Myself, In Rome, Heard It Said Openly In The Streets, "if There Is A Hell, Then Rome Is Built On It." Martin Luther, Against The Roman Papacy, An Institution Of The Devil London Is The Epitome Of Our Times, And The Rome Of To-day.

If The Gatherer Gathers Too-much, Nature Takes Out Of The Man What She Puts Into His Chest; Swells The Estate, But Kills The Owner. Nature Hates, Monopolies And Exceptions.

Our Expenses Are All For Conformity.

Money Often Costs Too Much.

Greatest Wealth

It Is A Luxury To Be Understood.

Enlarge Not Thy Destiny, Said The Oracle: Endeavor Not To Do More Than Is Given Thee In Charge.

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.

Sport Is The Bloom And Glow Of A Perfect Health. The Great Will Not Condescend To Take Anything Seriously; All Must Be As Gay As The Song Of A Canary, Though It Were The Building Of Cities, Or The Eradication Of Old And Foolish Churches And Nations, Which Have Cumbered The Earth Long Thousands Of Years.

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

Performing On A Stool, We've Got A Sight To Make You Drool, Seven Virgins And A Mule, Keep It Cool, Keep It Cool.

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 Word Miracle, As Pronounced By Christian Churches, Gives A False Impression; It Is Monster. It Is Not One With The Blowing Clover And The Falling Rain.

Every Artist Was First An Amateur.

There Are Many Eyes That Can Detect And Honor The Prudent And Household Virtues; There Are Many That Can Discern Genius On His Starry Track, Though The Mob Is Incapable; But When That Love Which Is All-suffering, All-abstaining, All-aspiring, Which Has Vowed To Itself, That It Will Be A Wretch And Also A Fool In This World, Sooner Than Soil Its White Hands By Any Compliances, Comes Into Our Streets And Houses,--only The Pure And Aspiring Can Know Its Face, And The Only Compliment They Can Pay It, Is To Own It.

Life Itself Is ... A Sleep Within A Sleep.

Health Is The Condition Of Wisdom, And The Sign Is Cheerfulness, - An Open And Noble Temper.

Go Out Of The House To See The Moon, And 't Is Mere Tinsel; It Will Not Please As When Its Light Shines Upon Your Necessary Journey. The Beauty That Shimmers In The Yellow Afternoons Of October, Who Could Ever Clutch It? Go Forth To Find It, And It Is Gone: 't Is Only A Mirage As You Look From The Windows Of Diligence.

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.

Tis The Good Reader That Makes The Good Book; In Every Book He Finds Passages Which Seem Confidences Or Asides Hidden From All Else And Unmistakenly Meant For His Ear; The Profit Of Books Is According To The Sensibility Of The Reader; The Profoundest Thought Or Passion Sleeps As In A Mine, Until It Is Discovered By An Equal Mind And Heart.

The Element Running Through Entire Nature, Which We Popularly Call Fate, Is Known To Us As Limitation. Whatever Limits Us, We Callfate.

There Are Many Virtues In Books, But The Essential Value Is The Adding Of Knowledge To Our Stock By The Record Of New Facts, And, Better, By The Record Of Intuitions Which Distribute Facts, And Are The Formulas Which Supersede All Histories.

Health And Appetite Impart The Sweetness To Sugar, Bread And Meat.

The First Point Of Courtesy Must Always Be Truth.

But A Compassion For That Which Is Not And Cannot Be Useful And Lovely, Is Degrading And Futile.

Life Is Not Measured By Its Length, But By Its Depth.

Trust Your Instinct To The End, Though You Can Render No Reason.

Yet Time And Space Are But Inverse Measures Of The Force Of The Soul. The Spirit Sports With Time.

We Know Truth When We See It, From Opinion, As We Know When We Are Awake That We Are Awake.

I Consider Theology To Be The Rhetoric Of Morals.

Things Admit Of Being Used As Symbols, Because Nature Is A Symbol, In The Whole, And In Every Part.

To Be A Man Is To Be A Nonconformist.

All Writing Comes By The Grace Of God.

The Sign And Credentials Of The Poet Are That He Announces That Which No Man Foretold

What New Thoughts Are Suggested By Seeing A Face Of Country Quite Familiar, In The Rapid Movement Of The Rail-road Car!

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

The Mass Of Men Worry Themselves Into Nameless Graves While Here And There A Great Unselfish Soul Forgets Himself Into Immortality.

The Axioms Of Physics Translate The Laws Of Ethics. Thus, "the Whole Is Greater Than Its Part;" "reaction Is Equal To Action;" "the Smallest Weight May Be Made To Lift The Greatest, The Difference Of Weight Being Compensated By Time;" And Many The Like Propositions, Which Have An Ethical As Well As Physical Sense. These Propositions Have A Much More Extensive And Universal Sense When Applied To Human Life, Than When Confined To Technical Use.

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.

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.

Whenever You Are Sincerely Pleased You Are Nourished.

Why Should We Not Have A First-hand And Immediate Experience Of God?

Truth Has Already Ceased To Be Itself If Polemically Said.

There Is Nothing Settled In Manners, But The Laws Of Behavior Yield To The Energy Of The Individual.

Life Is A Search After Power.

Do Your Thing, And I Shall Know You.

We Must Hold A Man Amenable To Reason For The Choice Of His Daily Craft Or Profession. It Is Not An Excuse Any Longer For His Deeds That They Are The Custom Of His Trade. What Business Has He With An Evil Trade?

We Are Always Getting Ready To Live But Never Living.

Law Of Attraction

Every Ship Is A Romantic Object, Except That We Sail In. Embark, And The Romance Quits Our Vessel, And Hangs On Every Other Sail In The Horizon.

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

Such Is The Active Power Of Good Temperament! Great Sweetness Of Temper Neutralizes Such Vast Amounts Of Acid.

The Wonder Is Always New That Any Sane Man Can Be A Sailor.

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise.

Writing Should Be The Settlement Of Dew On The Leaf.

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

If Thou Fill Thy Brain With Boston And New York, With Fashion And Covetousness, And Wilt Stimulate Thy Jaded Senses With Wine And French Coffee, Thou Shalt Find No Radiance Of Wisdom In The Lonely Waste Of The Pinewoods.

Life Is Short But There Is Always Time For Courtesy.

All History Is But The Lengthened Shadow Of A Great Man.

Tis The Old Secret Of The Gods That They Come In Low Disguises. 'tis The Vulgar Great Who Come Dizened With Gold And Jewels. Real Kings Hide Away Their Crowns In Their Wardrobes, And Affect A Plain And Poor Exterior.

The Finest Wits Have Their Sediment.

The Kitchen Clock Is More Convenient Than Sidereal Time. We Must Use The Popular Category, As We Do By The Linnæan Classification, For Convenience, And Not As Exact And Final. Otherwise, We Are Presently Confounded, When The Best-settled Traits Of One Race Are Claimed By Some New Ethnologist As Precisely Characteristic Of The Rival Tribe.

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

Whenever A True Theory Appears, It Will Be Its Own Evidence. Its Test Is, That It Will Explain All Phenomena.

Heroism Feels And Never Reasons, And Therefore Is Always Right.

Nothing Can Be More Delicate Without Being Fantastical, Nothing More Firm And Based In Nature And Sentiment, Than The Courtship And Mutual Carriage Of The Sexes.

The Sower May Mistake And Sow His Peas Crookedly; The Peas Make No Mistake, But Come Up And Show His Line.

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.

Had I But Written As Many Odes In Praise Of Muhammad And Ali As I Have Composed For King Mahmud, They Would Have Showered A Hundred Blessings On Me.

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.

Among The Map Makers Of Each Generation Are The Risk Takers, Those Who See The Opportunities, Seize The Moment And Expand Man's Vision Of The Future

Visions Of The Future

Every Calamity Is A Spur And A Valuable Hint.

The Crowning Fortune Of A Man Is To Be Born To Some Pursuit Which Finds Him Employment And Happiness, Whether It Be To Make Baskets, Or Broadswords, Or Canals, Or Statues, Or Songs.

In Our Definitions, We Grope After The Spiritual By Describing It As Invisible. The True Meaning Of Spiritual Is Real; That Law Which Executes Itself, Which Works Without Means, And Which Cannot Be Conceived As Not Existing.

Earth's A Howling Wilderness, Truculent With Fraud And Force.

In The Great Books Of India, An Empire Spoke To Us, Nothing Small Or Unworthy, But Large, Serene, Consistent, The Voice Of An Old Intelligence, Which In Another Age And Climate Had Pondered And Thus Disposed Of The Questions That Exercise Us.

It Is Noticed, That The Consideration Of The Great Periods And Spaces Of Astronomy Induces A Dignity Of Mind, And An Indifferenceto Death.

Who Gave Thee, O Beauty, The Keys Of This Breast,-- Too Credulous Lover Of Blest And Unblest? Say, When In Lapsed Ages Thee Knew I Of Old? Or What Was The Service For Which I Was Sold?

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

We Commonly Say That The Rich Man Can Speak The Truth, Can Afford Honesty, Can Afford Independence Of Opinion And Action;--and That Is The Theory Of Nobility. But It Is The Rich Man In A True Sense, That Is To Say, Not The Man Of Large Income And Large Expenditure, But Solely The Man Whose Outlay Is Less Than His Income And Is Steadily Kept So.

The Vocabulary Of An Omniscient Man Would Embrace Words And Images Excluded From Polite Conversation. What Would Be Base, Or Even Obscene, To The Obscene, Becomes Illustrious, Spoken In A New Connexion Of Thought.

Who Shall Forbid A Wise Skepticism, Seeing That There Is No Practical Question On Which Anything More Than An Approximate Solution Can Be Had?

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

Never Utter The Truism But Live It Among Men.

As Every Man Is Hunted By His Own Daemon, Vexed By His Own Disease, This Checks All His Activity.

Proverbs Are The Literature Of Reason, Or The Statements Of Absolute Truth, Without Qualification. Like The Sacred Books Of Each Nation, They Are The Sanctuary Of Its Intuitions.

If You Visit Your Friend, Why Need You Apologize For Not Having Visited Him, And Waste His Time And Deface Your Own Act? Visit Him Now.

I Believe It Is The Conviction Of The Purest Men, That The Net Amount Of Man And Man Does Not Much Vary. Each Is Incomparably Superior To His Companion In Some Faculty. His Want Of Skill In Other Directions, Has Added To His Fitness For His Own Work.

All Things With Which We Deal Preach To Us. What Is A Farm But A Mute Gospel? The Chaff And The Wheat, Weeds And Plants, Blight, Rain, Insects, Sun,--it Is A Sacred Emblem From The First Furrow Of Spring To The Last Stack Which The Snow Of Winter Overtakes In The Fields.

You Have A Place To Live In This World Which No Other Man Can Occupy; Hence No Competitors.

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

Use Makes A Better Soldier Than The Most Urgent Considerations Of Duty,--familiarity With Danger Enabling Him To Estimate The Danger. He Sees How Much Is The Risk, And Is Not Afflicted With Imagination; Knows Practically Marshal Saxe's Rule, That Every Soldier Killed Costs The Enemy His Weight In Lead.

The Life Of Truth Is Cold.

Belief Consists In Accepting The Affirmations Of The Soul; Unbelief In Denying Them.

Conservatism Is Affluent And Openhanded, But There Is A Cunning Juggle In Riches. I Observe That They Take Somewhat For Everythingthey Give. I Look Bigger, But Am Less; I Have More Clothes, But Am Nit So Warm; More Armor, But Less Courage; More Books, But Less Wit.

All Diseases Run Into One, Old Age.

Funny Relationship

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.

No Law Can Be Sacred To Me But That Of My Nature. Good And Bad Are But Names Very Readily Transferable To That Or This; The Only Right Is What Is After My Constitution; The Only Wrong Is What Is Against It.

The Young Man Reveres Men Of Genius, Because, To Speak Truly, They Are More Himself Than He Is.

Dare To Love God Without Mediator Or Veil.

Wherever A Man Commits A Crime, God Finds A Witness. Every Secret Crime Has Its Reporter.

There Is No Way To Success In Art But To Take Off Your Coat, Grind Paint, And Work Like A Digger On The Railroad, All Day And Every Day.

Whatever Limits Us We Call Fate.

For It Is Not Metres, But A Metre-making Argument That Makes A Poem, - A Thought So Passionate And Alive That Like The Spirit Of A Plant Or An Animal It Has An Architecture Of Its Own, And Adorns Nature With A New Thing.

Proportion Is Almost Impossible To Human Beings. There Is No One Who Does Not Exaggerate.

Painting Was Called Silent Poetry And Poetry Speaking Painting.

When There Is No Vision, People Perish.

Our Desires Presage The Capacities Within Us; They Are Harbingers Of What We Shall Be Able To Accomplish. What We Can Do And Want To Do Is Projected In Our Imagination, Quite Outside Ourselves, And Into The Future. We Are Attracted To What Is Already Ours In Secret. Thus Passionate Anticipation Transforms What Is Indeed Possible Into Dreamt-for Reality.

Begin And Proceed On A Settled Conviction That But Little Is Permitted To Any Man To Do Or To Know, And If He Complies With The First Grand Laws, He Shall Do Well.

But A Public Oration Is An Escapade, A Non-committal, An Apology, A Gag, And Not A Communication, Not A Speech, Not A Man.

Before A Leaf-bud Has Burst, Its Whole Life Acts; In The Full-blown Flower There Is No More; In The Leafless Root There Is No Less.

Truth Is Beautiful Within And Without, Forevermore.

Our Faith Comes In Moments . . . Yet There Is A Depth In Those Brief Moments Which Constrains Us To Ascribe More Reality To Them Than To All Other Experiences.

'tis A Good Rule In Every Journey To Provide Some Piece Of Liberal Study To Rescue The Hours Which Bad Weather, Bad Company, And Taverns Steal From The Best Economist.

Nobody Is Glad In The Gladness Of Another, And Our System Is One Of War, Of An Injurious Superiority. Every Child Of The Saxon Race Is Educated To Wish To Be First. It Is Our System; And A Man Comes To Measure His Greatness By The Regrets, Envies, And Hatreds Of His Competitors.

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

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.

There Can Never Be Deep Peace Between Two Spirits, Never Mutual Respect, Until, In Their Dialogue, Each Stands For The Whole World.

A Great Licentiousness Treads On The Heels Of A Reformation.

Science Is Organized Knowledge. Wisdom Is Organized Life. Football Is Four 15-minute Quarters. Plus Timeouts And Commercials.

Standing On The Bare Ground,--my Head Bathed By The Blithe Air And Uplifted Into Infinite Space,--all Mean Egotism Vanishes. I Become A Transparent Eyeball; I Am Nothing; I See All; The Currents Of The Universal Being Circulate Through Me; I Am Part Or Parcel Of God.

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.

Every Book Is Good To Read Which Sets The Reader In A Working Mood.

Add Energy, Inspire Hope, And Blow The Coals Into A Useful Flame.

It Seems To Be A Rule Of Wisdom Never To Rely On Memory Alone.

The River Knows The Way To The Sea: Without A Pilot It Runs And Falls, Blessing All Lands With Its Charity.

Man Is Made Of The Same Atoms The World Is, He Shares The Same Impressions, Predispositions, And Destiny. When His Mind Is Illuminated, When His Heart Is Kind, He Throws Himself Joyfully Into The Sublime Order, And Does, With Knowledge, What The Stones Do By Structure.

Fractures Well Cured Make Us More Strong.

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 Senses Interfere Everywhere, And Mix Their Own Structure With All They Report Of.

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

Our Reliance On The Physician Is A Kind Of Despair Of Ourselves.

The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity.

Steam Was Till The Other Day The Devil Which We Dreaded. Every Pot Made By Any Human Potter Or Brazier Had A Hole In Its Cover, To Let Off The Enemy, Lest He Should Lift Pot And Roof And Carry The House Away.

Beauty Is The Mark God Sets Upon Virtue.

Philanthropies And Charities Have A Certain Air Of Quackery.

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

Human Character Evermore Publishes Itself. The Most Fugitive Deed And Word, The Intimated Purpose, Express Character.

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